Ethical critique in political discourse

Abstract

In recent years, we have witnessed a drastic wave of totalitarian regimes, as noted by Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018) in the book entitled How Democracies Die. The authors provide historical examples of democratic rupture in the last one hundred years: from Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s to the current populist wave of right-wing extremism in Europe, preceded by the military dictatorships of Latin America in the1970s. The dizzying growth of Brazil’s new right wing, particularly the democratic far right, which is spearheaded by current president Jair Bolsonaro as the “honest politician” who stands in opposition to the corrupt political class. Regarding the present context of abuse of power, denial, and fake news, I decided to reflect upon the issue of ethics, more specifically of ethical critique in political discourse.