When Words Become Dangerous: Brazil Cannot Afford Another Near-Tragedy
By Hotspotnews
In a functioning democracy, political opponents are defeated at the ballot box, not marked for elimination through rhetoric. Yet that basic principle is under strain in Brazil right now.
President Lula has repeatedly labeled members of the Bolsonaro family “traitors to the fatherland” and, in the same speeches, invoked the historical practice of hanging traitors. A retired judge, Sebastião Coelho, has gone further, stating publicly that these remarks amount to a signal encouraging criminals to attack Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the leading conservative presidential contender. Flávio’s team has formally complained to the Supreme Court, arguing the language normalizes the idea that their candidate deserves to die.
This is not abstract wordplay. Flávio has already reported a surge of more than two thousand online threats, incitements, and coded references to violence since June. He has tripled his security detail from the Senate police and now wears a bulletproof vest as a matter of routine. These are not the precautions of a paranoid politician. They are the rational response of a man whose father nearly bled to death from a knife wound on a campaign stage in 2018.
That 2018 attack remains a stark reminder of how quickly political hatred can turn physical. Jair Bolsonaro survived by inches. The country was forced to confront the reality that a major candidate could be murdered in broad daylight. Eight years later, the same family is again the target of dehumanizing language from the highest office in the land. When a president speaks of traitors and hangings while his main opponent receives a flood of death threats, it is not “robust debate.” It is reckless escalation.
Conservatives do not need to invent conspiracies to see the problem. The problem is the deliberate lowering of the moral barrier against political violence. Leaders set the temperature. When they describe their opponents as enemies of the nation who once would have been executed, they invite unstable individuals to take the next logical step. History shows that such invitations are sometimes accepted.
Brazil deserves better. Candidates of every party must be able to campaign without fearing for their lives. Threats must be investigated aggressively. And those who occupy the presidency should understand that their words carry unique weight. Calling for the political defeat of an opponent is legitimate. Suggesting, even by historical analogy, that they deserve to hang is not.
The solution is not silence or censorship. It is responsibility. Reject the language of elimination. Strengthen security for every candidate who faces credible threats. And remember that democracy dies not only when ballots are stolen, but when the idea takes root that some political opponents are simply too dangerous to be allowed to live and compete. Brazil already came too close once. It must not come close again.