ABSTRACT
This article analyzes Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s speeches during the first months of the coronavirus pandemic that were released on his YouTube channel’s program “Ao Vivo da Semana”. It argues that Bolsonaro’s discourse about the pandemic was based on the use of “mitigating procedures,” a rhetorical strategy that aims to control language’s emotional impacts by using less brusque tones when issuing potentially threatening statements. By directing these tactics at people with whom he shares an ideological identity, Bolsonaro has been able to intensify intimate political-affective ties that are capable of minimizing and normalizing the contagion and death caused by the pandemic and exempting the federal government from responsibility.
Keywords:
pandemic in Brazil; mitigating procedures; Bolsonaro administration; democratic crisis; political communication