Earlier this week, former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff went viral on social media for her somewhat confusing explanation of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Using pro-Kremlin arguments, she spoke to a left-wing YouTube news channel about the conflict, justifying Russia’s demands. At the top of the interview, she led with Lord Ismay’s famous remark that NATO was created as a western alliance to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”
Ms. Rousseff’s speech broke the leftist bubble, being featured by conservative news channel Jovem Pan under the headline “crashed neurons.” Mocking the former president’s tortuous rationale and occasional mistakes in her speech, the video reached over 2.4 million YouTube views in the space of a week and was shared widely among right-leaning WhatsApp and Telegram groups. Indeed, when searching for “Dilma Rousseff” on YouTube in Brazil, Jovem Pan’s segment appears close to the top of the...
Search
