This year's election will be full of commotion and great stories, such as the embarrassing altercation between Jair Bolsonaro and the YouTuber who called him "centrão [pork-barrel faction in Congress] sweetheart". Or the applause to the electronic ballot boxes at the inauguration of Alexandre de Moraes in the Supreme Electoral Court, again, not one of the president's finest hours in the last week. It is not the excess of facts, however, that explains the lack of excitement of the press regarding the excellent article by Metrópoles about subversive dialogues in a WhatsApp group of Bolsonarista businessmen. In it, the coup d'etat was discussed with the resourcefulness of someone who preaches a tax reform.
On Wednesday (17), a good portion of the national press commented things like the day after the court session, the meeting of the antipodes, the countless messages conveyed by the Justice in his speech, the applause from most of the audience, and the statue-like effort of the Bolsonaristas. Besides, of course, the explicit demonstration of "power expectation", a term coined by more than one analyst to explain the warm reception of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the venue.
There was also talk of a kind of political-legal confirmation of the acts of August 11. The manifestations of civil society, expressed in the Letters organized by the USP Law School and Fiesp, ( Federation of industries of the state of Sao Paulo), were endorsed by the Powers, represented there by their top leaders. Democracy is the only alternative, the polls are reliable, and anyone who is against it or produces fake news to demoralize the electoral process will be swiftly and relentlessly punished, Moraes, sentenced from the stage.
The Democratic State of Law, in short, seemed in good shape. The perception was short-lived, only until late afternoon, when Metrópoles published its article. In a group filled with powerful members of the Bolsonarista GDP, the conversation was in the diametrically opposite direction: a coup d'état is necessary if Lula wins. "I prefer a coup than the return of the PT." "I want to see if the Supreme Court has the guts to rig the elections after a military parade on Avenida Atlântica with the troops applauded by the people." "The coup should have happened in the first days of the government." " Releasing the prisoner was the actual coup!!! The old media just talking shit is what's a coup."
The "old media" talked about the shit, but with inexplicable restraint. There were people who didn't even talk about it, like Jornal Nacional. Folha only caught up with the story on Thursday (18), when the content of the article inevitably emerged in an improvised press conference by Bolsonaro. Even so, because of the president's refusal, with a statement that would fit into any Bolsonarista current: "Bolsonaro says that businessmen defending a coup is fake news".
The issue gained some traction on news sites, but soon the president became a "sweetheart", and concern for the rule of law bowed down to jest. Of the four major newspapers in the country, only Folha and O Estado de S.Paulo printed the issue in article format. Folha still needed Reinaldo Azevedo to report the matter indirectly on the Primeira Página (First Page). The columnists, by the way, understood the relevance of the news.
In an interview with the Panel S.A., Marcos Cintra, former Revenue Secretary and vice candidate on the presidential ticket of União Brasil naturalized the explicit coup. As a member of the WhatsApp group himself, he defined it as a place to "'make small talk'". "It seems that someone caught wind of this comment that said that they would rather have a coup than Lula or the PT. But it went away, and nothing else was spoken of it. One person or other laughed and moved on." Cintra criticized the way the issue got blown out of proportion, with requests for an investigation in the Supreme Court. "What kind of society are we living in?" One that does not accept coups, not even as a joke?
According to Metrópoles, the group members include, among others, Luciano Hang (Havan), Afrânio Barreira (Coco Bambu), José Isaac Peres (Multiplan), José Koury (Barra World Shopping), Ivan Wrobel (W3 Engenharia) and Marco Aurélio Raymundo(Mormaii), authors of some of the sentences reproduced in the above paragraphs. Another member, Meyer Nigri (Tecnisa), according to the article, forwarded text messages from third parties containing attacks on the Supreme Court and in defense of a parallel counting of the votes. "I only forwarded a WhatsApp message that I'd received," said the contractor on the other side.
Being careful when forwarding messages is the number one rule against fake news. And attacking the Democratic Rule of Law is a crime, recalled Dias Toffoli, on Friday (19), alongside Ciro Nogueira, Arthur Lira, and Rodrigo Pacheco.
This column repeats: the coup is underway. It is an obligation of the press, the media, old, new, middle, or zero age, not to waste any opportunity to denounce it. Even if it was just "a conversation", democracy there has left the group.
Translated by Cassy Dias