Thread by @Vinncent

Journalists and analysts writing about Brazil's election - don't try to save yourself from doing work or exercising judgment by saying Bolsonaro "has been accused of" homophobic, racist or violent comments and supporting dictators. Please just check what he actually said.

Everyone these days is accused of all kinds of things, and using this language is an abdication of responsibility. Especially because, even just a cursory investigation will reveal Bolsonaro's political life is explicitly based on promoting reactionary violence. That's a fact.

But for ease of reference, I'll put some of his most relevant moments in a thread here, and you can decide how you want to talk about him.

Bolsonaro has repeatedly celebrated dictatorship and the extermination - that is, mass murder - of political enemies, especially the left. Watch his face in that clip when he says Pinochet did what had to be done. He's not joking.

https://twitter.com/Vinncent/status/1037335263607959554

This is not an intentionally shocking position he just made up to get attention on social media. In 1999, not long after the dictatorship ended, he said voting wouldn't change anything, only mass murder would. I will translate the quote in full below:

www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2018/06/…

"Voting won't change anything in this country. Nothing! Things will only change, unfortunately, after starting a civil war here, and doing the work the dictatorship didn't do. Killing some 30,000 people, and starting with [President] FHC. If some innocents die, that's just fine"

Again, this is not coming from nowhere. In Bolsonaro's own lifetime, Latin American dictatorships killed tens of thousands of civilians, usually for being left-wing or being accused of being left wing. Bolsonaro is right in this tradition of violent, fanatical anti-communism.

Latin America had its own recent holocaust, and Bolsonaro is not even a holocaust denier. He's a full-throated defender of that holocaust. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, an elder statesmen beloved by the center-right, remembers when he called for his execution noticias.uol.com.br/ultimas-notici…

Now, racism in Brazil is a crime. So Bolsonaro wasn't "accused of" racist comments. He wasn't like, called out on Twitter by some student for being problematic. He was convicted in a court of law. g1.globo.com/rio-de-janeiro…

As for homophobia, you can judge whether or not he's "accused of" making homophobic comments, or whether he simply made them.

In 2002, Bolsonaro said:
"If I see two men on the street kissing, I'm going to beat them."
www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/cotidian/f…

"

Here's Bolsonaro again, on how see he sees LGBT persons, in 2011:

"I couldn't love a gay son," he said. "I would rather my son die in a car accident than show up with some guy with a mustache. For me that would mean he was already dead."

extra.globo.com/famosos/deputa…

On women - he told a Congresswoman he wouldn't rape her because she didn't deserve it, wasn't good enough. He said this several times, and called her ugly. Again, this is not a wild accusation - he was convicted in a court of law. g1.globo.com/politica/notic…

When Marielle Franco was brutally murdered this year, every candidate made a statement expressing condolences or condemning the assassination of the socialist, feminist politician in Rio. Except Bolsonaro veja.abril.com.br/blog/maquiavel…

I could go on and on. He dedicated his vote to impeach Dilma to the man that tortured her (this is the day I first spoke to him.) He recently said at a campaign event they would machine gun the Workers Party. None of this is hidden, none of it is controversial, it simply happened

Now, I think there are limits to this kind of political analysis. We need to do much more than just point to the awful things he says. But the bare minimum required is to research and report the things he actually advocates, not just write "some people say" he says them.
/thread