Jota Pe Hernández: the misogynistic and ultraconservative YouTuber who camouflages himself in the Green Party

“Piedad Córdoba has just died. “One less bandit in Colombia.” Those were the words of Jonathan Ferney Pulido Hernández, the Green Party's most voted senator, minutes after the death of the Historical Pact policy was made public on January 20. Pulido Hernández, better known as Jota Pe, made a video that has more than 2 million interactions, in which he celebrates the death of a woman who sat a few seats away from him in the Senate plenary sessions: “Friend and accomplice of the criminals, terrorists, murderers. She is gone, one of the worst people in this world, a criminal, a scoundrel. There are more white-collar rats like her,” the senator shouted from his truck, dressed in a leather jacket and a black T-shirt, his uniform for public addresses. None of the other political opponents in Córdoba, who were many, reacted so violently.

“Referring like this to a person who has just died and has no way to defend himself speaks volumes about the type of human being that Senator Pulido is,” says Senator María José Pizarro, a co-partisan from Córdoba, in dialogue with EL PAÍS. “It is very serious because not only is it disrespectful to her history, to her struggle as a woman, to her commitment to peace, but, above all, it is disrespectful to her family and the thousands of Colombians who have believed in her,” Pizarro insists. Pulido's reaction to Córdoba's death revived an old disagreement among members of the Green party against him. In a letter addressed to the ethics commission and management, the women congressmen called for the senator's expulsion. “In a forceful manner, we reject the inappropriate statements by Senator Jonathan Ferney Pulido, against Senator Piedad Córdoba Ruiz. “She RIP that, instead of arguing, she has dedicated herself to denigrating and attacking his dignity and the respect that he deserves.” The letter, which to date has not received a response, requests “that he be punished with the utmost rigor and that he be isolated from the community in order to set a precedent.”

Pulido was born in Bucaramanga, Santander, 32 years ago. He comes from a humble and hard-working family. in his book From Youtuber to senator, published by Planeta, says that he grew up in a wood and plastic ranch that his parents built on an invasion lot, and that at the age of 10 he began selling empanadas on the streets of his city. His political experience recorded on the visible Congress page is limited to “creator of political digital content, recognized by Google with the gold plaque.” Before coming to Congress, he was a Christian music singer, artist and YouTuber. He gained national fame when he supported the young people who protested against Iván Duque during the 2021 national strike. He vehemently criticized police repression and the abuses of the then Government. These rebellious positions and his anti-corruption speech allowed the Green Alliance party, a critic of Duque, to give him endorsement.

However, after obtaining 180,000 votes to be elected as the third senator with the most support in the country, their ultra-conservative positions have returned. In September 2016, Jota Pe declared himself an admirer of former attorney Alejandro Ordóñez, his countryman and extreme rightist: “From Bucaramanga we support you, from heaven the support of God. You know, the later glory will be better than the first,” Jota Pe told Ordoñez, referring to a biblical passage. There is also a record of insults and attacks on Gustavo Petro when he was a presidential candidate, in 2022. In one of the messages, for which he later apologized, Pulido assures that the day Petro dies, Colombia “will rest from so much populism and tares ”. Jota Pe has also expressed on several occasions that he is against abortion and marriage between same-sex couples. His current ultra-conservative positions differ from the progressive ideas with which he got himself elected, but they are similar to those he had when he began his YouTuber career.

In recent months, Jota Pe has become one of the main congressmen opposed to the Petro Government, despite the fact that his party is in the ruling coalition. He has been against the health reform, the flagship of the Government, the pension and the labor reform. He promoted the marches against the Government for the increases in the price of gasoline. He opposed the decriminalization of the adult-use cannabis market, in debates in which he got into shouting matches with colleagues from his party. In a discussion, he resorted to homophobic insults: “Caught, asking for the session to be adjourned, faggot,” he said to Green senator Inti Asprilla. Many times he has defended and supported the positions of senators from the Democratic Center and Radical Change. Quite an opponent.

Chamber representative Martha Alfonso, Pulido's co-partisan and faithful defender of the Government, told EL PAÍS that her party “cannot continue to accept misogynistic comments or attacks from any of its members.” Much less, she says, “arrogant and insensitive attitudes that do not recognize diversity and difference, and that make political debate more hostile.” Alfonso remembers that in recent months Jota Pe aggressively attacked Senator Pizarro during another discussion about cannabis. Pulido shared on his social networks, his main channel of communication with citizens and where he has hundreds of thousands of followers, anonymous messages that insulted Pizarro in a sexist way. “These types of attitudes cannot be tolerated in a party that calls itself progressive and democratic, that defends peace and in a party in which women are a central element in the construction of politics,” says Alfonso.

“I have felt harassed by Senator Pulido,” Pizarro acknowledges. “He reinterprets my words, he records me and adjusts what I say in his own way to distort me.” Pizarro affirms that Jota Pe constantly spreads hate speech and exercises political violence against her opponents, especially several women. “He is openly misogynistic and sexist. He has really given very little height to the political debate in Congress.” The left-wing senator Clara López has asked him for respect on several occasions: “He is disrespecting his dignity as a senator by replicating such disobliging and aggressive messages. He must recant and offer excuses to the senator, to whom I express all my solidarity,” the congresswoman from the Historical Pact once wrote.

Pulido has not apologized to Pizarro or to Piedad Córdoba's relatives. “In the last incident we had I felt violated. I reported him immediately. It seemed violent and dangerous to me. When a person has so much power on social networks, he spreads these types of messages, he is giving carte blanche so that his followers can react the same or go directly to physical violence,” reflects Pizarro. And he adds: “It was not just an offense to me, but to my mother and my daughters and to the women who participate in politics. It is a bad sign that the Green Party has not done anything because the feeling remains that any congressman can be a misogynist and there will be no consequences.”

EL PAÍS tried to speak on several occasions with Senator Pulido and his team, but until the time of publication of this article there was no response.