Jair Bolsonaro's coup has not come until now, but it hasn't been for the lack of coup plotters. On the streets, in front of military installations, on the roads, and on social media, subversive people transit between the ridiculous and the reckless. An individual rehearses a united order in Bermuda shorts, the Brazilian football team shirt, and a flagpole with a flag on his shoulders playing the role of a rifle, marching from one side to the other in a pathetic way. Around, no one pays attention. The bizarre has become natural.

Corinthian's group of football supporters Gaviões da fiel clears the Tietê highway in a matter of minutes, while government's military officer Rodrigo Garcia studies the manual and takes days to untie the same knot on Castelo Branco. A woman defends the legitimacy of the "passive" manifestation. The joke stops being funny when images show various degrees of violence. Does this Brazil really exist?

According to Datafolha's calculations, 21% of the country's voters are die-hard Bolsonarists. It is the group that says they voted for Bolsonaro in 2018, considers his government great or good, and always trusts what he says. Also with data related to the penultimate poll before the final election, crossing the votes of 2018 and the first round, intention for the second and the seal of great or good, the share grows to 27%. Scholars say the radicals are between 5% and 15%. On any account, it's not just a handful of people.

There were also more than a few people caught red-handed in Santa Catarina singing the national anthem with their right arms raised in front of them. A preliminary investigation by the local prosecution office found that it was not a Nazi salute, but a request by the event's speaker for everyone to extend their arm to the neighbor's shoulder in order to "emanate positive energies". The prosecution can think whatever they want, whoever saw the video was shocked by the large manifestation of Nazi aesthetics.

While all this was happening, Bolsonaro reserved himself the right to remain silent. When he finally spoke on Tuesday afternoon, he said very little, enough to leave no room for a lawsuit and enough to keep his horde of supporters on hold. Still, the country's main publications granted stature to the president in their headlines. In Folha, he "condemns the roadblocks"; in O Globo, he "ignores defeat"; in O Estado de S.Paulo, he "does not contest defeat"; in Valor, he "says he respects the Constitution", similar to the G1's "will comply with the Constitution"; at UOL, he "defends the right to come and go". Bolsonaro used those words, but he clearly didn't mean any of it. The "condemns roadblocks" in Folha is remarkable. He practically legitimized the demonstrations, as the inflamed social networks showed after the speech and the following day. It was necessary to go to the British The Guardian to find Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: "Bolsonaro breaks electoral silence, but refuses to acknowledge Lula's victory".

Is it worth reading Bolsonaro's speech so literally? The country only knows for sure that the president gave up contesting the results of the polls thanks to a comment by justice Edson Fachin, on Thursday (3), no less literal: in a meeting at the STF ( Supreme Federal Court), the president "used the verb 'to end ' in the past". Ended? It's not enough for someone who spent four years threatening, in the gerund.

It is natural to have a certain accommodation effort from the institutions, the country is under tension, and its path to pacification will be a long one. But that doesn't give anyone the authorization to attenuate the figure of the president or his speech or the gesture of the citizen who raises his arm in front of him. If they don't know it's a crime, they shall learn.

WE SLIPPED

A note about Steve Bannon alleging fraud in Brazil did not ponder in the title that the former Donald Trump strategist had no proof of what he was talking about. The title was later changed, but the original statement was already surfing freely with its factual meaning on the internet, showing that even Folha had confirmed the ruse that never took place in the election.

A note about Nelson Piquet saying he wanted to see Lula buried in a cemetery included a video with the live speech, expanding the dissemination of the content. You could break the news without increasing the reach of the threat. It was still possible to avoid the euphemism in the subtitle that the three-time champion "was being polemic". Piquet is not being polemic, he is being a coup-monger, the same way he was once being a racist.

The tweet from a columnist was capitalized to say that the MTST ( Brazil's homeless workers' movement) was sending "thousands to the streets to disarm Bolsonarist barricades." Is it worth putting water on the president's boil and blowing the flames from the streets?

Another tweet by a columnist denounced the request for a military coup by Bolsonarist networks, reproducing the call for the acts on Wednesday (2). Journalists still fantasize that everyone will read denounces as such. That was never true, and in the digital age, people simply believe what they want to believe. Even that Xandão (popular nickname of Justice Alexandre de Moraes) was arrested, or that there are tanks leaving the barracks, and that Bolsonaro defends the Constitution. Journalism does not need to contribute.

_{Translated by Cassy Dias}