Crass. Bellicose. Cruel. Vindictive. Self-absorbed. These adjectives could describe many politicians currently running Brazil, especially far-right president Jair Bolsonaro. The fact that Brazilian politics at the national level are increasingly dominated by a cadre of spiteful incompetents has been made all the more visible by the international, Twitter tirade-fueled debate over the administration’s negligent handling of the man-made fires raging in the Amazon and threatening indigenous territorial rights.

Among others there is Ernesto Araújo, the foreign minister and culture warrior. Hell-bent on dismantling Brazil’s globally respected diplomatic service, Araújo took to Twitter to decry the “‘environmental crisis’” (scare quotes in the original) as “the last weapon in the left’s arsenal of lies.” Minister of Education Abraham Weintraub, whose budget cuts are systematically dismantling higher education and scientific inquiry, joined the fray to call French president Emmanuel Macron an “ opportunist reprobate” and a “cretin” for tweeting about the fires. Environmental Minister Ricardo Salles, whose agency ignored warnings that land-grabbers were planning a “fire day” to seize lands in the Amazon, referred to Macron diminutively as “Mícron” and deployed the hashtag #somostodosricardosalles (#weareallricardosalles) to garner support for his plans to open the Amazon to cattle farming and international agribusiness.

For his part, Bolsonaro downplayed the scope of the fires, recommended that people defecate every other day to save the environment, and then claimed without evidence that the fires were the work of international NGOs out to defame his administration. He also took to Facebook to applaud an insult directed at Macron’s wife.