September 1, 2019

Of Course Trump Praised Jair Bolsonaro While the Whole World Condemns His Treatment of the Amazon

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a28832920/president-trump-praise-jair-bolsonaro-amazon-wildfires/?fbclid=IwAR1bwxAlGhTz1iyI1hD6TuAkjaUZBR6wT4GQ8ypTsJhGzsraYZLubarUNrY
"The United States president also found time to offer his public support for Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president who's under international pressure now that the Amazon is on fire after he embraced a program of ruthlessly exploiting the rainforest, which is a giant carbon sink that produces 20 percent of Earth's oxygen. It's no surprise to see Trump backing another authoritarian leader—it's kind of his thing. We scarcely talk about it anymore, but the President of the United States almost exclusively attacks the democratic leaders of nations that are our traditional allies while paling around with brutish strongmen. The list of the latter includes Kim Jong-un of North Korea, who orchestrates a system of human-rights abuses against his citizens, but also wrote Trump a beautiful letter; Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, who's backed extrajudicial executions of anyone accused of running drugs, but whom Trump said is doing an "unbelievable job"; and of course, his Good Friend Vlad. Bolsonaro, for his part, is a real nasty piece of work. He's spoken of "cleansing" the Brazilian political left, the kind of terminology that never ends well. He told a female Brazilian lawmaker that he "wouldn't rape you because you're not worthy of it," which of course echoes our own president's dismissal of women who've accused him of sexual assault: "She wouldn't be my first choice." More than all that, he openly embraced Brazil's legacy of fascist military dictatorship."