Trump Outperforms Bolsonaro on Social Media

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro landed in Washington yesterday for an official visit to the U.S. which will conclude with a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday. Even though the two men haven’t met yet, they share a mutual admiration and some signature governing styles: Both take to Twitter (and in Bolsonaro’s case, Facebook) to get their message out to citizens and both like to dismiss critique of their hard-line political approaches as “fake news”. Just two weeks ago, a bizarre pornographic video tweeted out by Bolsonaro, in which he questioned the integrity of the Brazilian carnival, made international headlines.

In fact, Bolsonaro, who was elected one year after Trump, has been accused of copying Trump’s style and riding the wave of populist sentiment in the wake of Trump’s election. Trump is certainly the bigger name on social media and especially on Twitter, but those who have called the Brazilian president a Mini-Trump in the past might feel reassured by the comparison of Trump’s and Bolsonaro’s social media performance.