ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to analyse the socio-political course that enabled the rise of Jair Bolsonaro in a context of political hate speech. The methodological focus is on the theory of discourse analysis. First, there is an observation of the protest posters that took over the streets in 2015 against the Workers’ Party; later, there is a revision of opinion articles from Veja, the most widely read magazine at the time. This chapter seeks to demonstrate how the controversy portrayed by the magazine, according to the social-discursive debate, contributed to establishing a polarization of ideology in the country. The results of the research show the leading role of the traditional Brazilian media in building a social-discursive imaginary that circulated hate speech to further weaken agitations that had already been underway in Brazil since 2013. Hate speech gave a sense of legitimacy to Rousseff’s impeachment and to all the following chapters of Brazil’s recent socio-political history. Some of the right-wing parties were unsatisfied with the election results; thus, the media and judicial support gave legitimacy not only to the organization of Rousseff’s impeachment, but to the creation of a character who would fit the role whose script was ready: Jair Bolsonaro.
