With Sunday’s election of Jair Bolsonaro to be the next president of Brazil the world’s increasingly battered liberal order has suffered another blow. Once again public fury at an aloof and self-serving political class during a time of economic hardship has helped propel a demagogue into power. He disparages the UN, calling it a communist racket and threatens to quit the organisation. Outsiders can only lament that a majority of Brazilians have chosen someone viscerally opposed to liberal democracy, civic comity and equal rights for women and minorities to solve their country’s various crises. Waiting for Facebook and its peers to properly police their own networks is too risky an abdication of responsibility.

Source: The Irish Times October 30, 2018 05:15 UTC