Silvio Almeida wrote that this election is "particularly existential". He was one of the many Folha columnists who have spared no ink in recent days to underline the country's great responsibility this Sunday (2). It's time to push the button at the polls.

There is another existence that is particularly at stake in this violent and polarized election: that of the media, fundamental to democracy and mistreated just like it by a long line of people, including the current president, but also by its own doing.

There is a reasonable chance that today or in four weeks Jair Bolsonaro will be refused a second term. It was the role of the press to expose him. His incompetence and lack of humanity were blatant during the pandemic, to mention just one of the many intolerable attitudes he has adopted in the last four years. He will leave power, if voters so desire, through voting, the instrument so disqualified by him. The choice of the majority, however, will not end Bolsonarism. Depending on the behavior of the different sectors of society, it should largely feed it back.

Bolsonaro will hardly admit defeat. It will repeat Aécio Neves, who did not grant the victory to Dilma Rousseff in 2014, to make use of anglicism. Donald Trump also had a hard time letting go of his seat in the US in 2020 and things turned out the way they did. Those defeated in Chile and Colombia this year showed urbanity. Gestures make a lot of difference. One can only imagine that they will be rare in this country in the coming months. The media could make their own.

In an interview with Valor Magazine, a specialist in Venezuela stated that political polarization has spilled over into the social fabric also in Brazil and that the risk of this trajectory is the demoralization of democracy. The problem has been going on for a long time and now it's exacerbated by the sound of gunshots and clubbing. Lately, it has been easy to put all this on the president's tab; Bolsonaro practically has pushed journalism to the other side of the field. Without authoritarianism, what will it be like?

The first signs are not promising. Opinion pages reacted as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's favoritism took hold. Last week, Estado de S.Paulo went only one day without mentioning the former president in its editorials. In three of them, the paper splashed his name across the headline. Folha was much more concerned with the rest of the world, which was collapsing in the news, but it did not shy away from giving wide visibility to the editorial "Shot in the foot" last weekend, in which the paper demanded definitions of economic policy from the Workers' Party. It also made an effort to publicize the article in which Alexandre Schwartsman, "In praise of the non-tactical vote", demoted Lula to the level of Bolsonaro. Whoever preached a tactical vote did not receive such treatment. The newspaper did not lack any offers.

Lula does not deserve condescension for being Bolsonaro's option, obviously, but the argument here, before being about taking sides, is about willingness. The press was legitimated to fight the current president for his actions and has had a long history of animosity towards the former, who always responds with the old litany of establishing some control over the media. All a person has to do is link the present to the past to see that the future belongs to polarization.

The effects of this process are deleterious. The press contributes to the intensification of opinions by entrenching itself. That when the trench itself doesn't become a form of livelihood, monetized, no matter if via radicalism. The country needs to rebuild itself on several fronts, consensus will be necessary. Without these, we're probably facing another four years of struggle.

It would be important for the respectable media to reflect on their responsibility in the conduct of the public debate. Like the initiative of the consortium of press vehicles in the face of the absurd level of official misinformation in the pandemic. There is no shortage of opportunities. A massive campaign for the normalization of childhood vaccination, a pool of journalists in the Amazon, and a more mature relationship between the press and the government.

The country needs every possible gesture. Pressing the button at the polls is just the first of them.

'HI, FOLHA...'

Felipe Neto decided to comment on Folha's news on Twitter about his apology to Dilma Rousseff "for having propagated anti-PT sentiments, the coup-mongering speech, and hatred of the left-wing". According to the YouTuber, the newspaper should have remembered that the apologies were for supporting the "COUP", thus written, in capital letters. And that the newspaper "had a decisive role" in "defending the COUP" at the time of the former president's impeachment. "I think you also owe her an apology, as do other communication vehicles and major broadcasters."

Folha did not respond to the influencer's tweet, who has 16 million followers on Instagram and is currently Lula's master electoral chief. The paper should have at least acknowledged the criticism, but it denied this gesture to its readers. Readers need gestures too.

_{Translated by Cassy Dias}