Godwin’s Law reaches the Brazilian public debate

Back in 1990, when the internet was still in its infancy, American lawyer Mike Godwin coined a law that now bears his name: “As [an internet] discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

With just months until Brazil’s next presidential election, there is plenty of evidence that Godwin’s Law has the country’s public debate in a hammerlock. From the left, there is no shortage of “satirical” cartoons portraying Jair Bolsonaro as Hitler. Meanwhile, the right has consistently made the absurd assertion that Nazism was “obviously” a left-wing ideology, as their full name was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

But now, the latest piece of this puzzle of intolerance concerns how hard-right pundits have started to defend the right of Nazis to parade their bigotry and promote hate speech under the guise of defending freedom of speech.

The latest round of social media outrage came on Monday evening, when a famous podcaster argued with two lawmakers that a Nazi party should have the right to exist in Brazil — and that people should have the right to be “anti-Jewish.”

The comments came from YouTuber Bruno Aiub, best known by his online nickname Monark, who co-hosts the highly popular Flow Podcast. Launched in 2018, it is a long-form conversation show, in which Monark and Igor Coelho speak to a variety of guests at length, often while drinking alcohol or smoking cannabis. In many ways, it seeks to emulate the extremely popular and controversial “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast in the U.S., disarming guests and trying to eke out candid answers and conversations.

In less than four years, Flow has become one of Brazil’s most successful podcasts, attracting guests such as Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, the president’s third-eldest son, and presidential hopeful Sergio Moro.

Controversy has never been far from Flow, with Monark often getting himself into trouble for his declarations...