In Brazil, Bolsonaro Gambles on a Coronavirus Culture War

"As things got going last Sunday, it became clear that—despite earlier assurances to the contrary from officialdom—these marches were not just about supporting the president. Calls for a military coup, or to shut down Congress and the Supreme Court, or to usher in a new age of brutal repression, were everywhere. In downtown São Paulo, one giant banner read: “Military Intervention—Now!” One participant, a forty-five-year-old man named Alexandre Lima, told me, “It was a good idea to postpone the demonstrations. But I went anyways.” For now, he prefers just telling the rest of the government they’d better do what Bolsonaro wants. He doesn’t favor a coup, he said, because it would look bad. 


“The world already thinks this is too much of a military government,” he explained. “That would do unnecessary damage to our reputation.” Another protester, a twenty-nine-year-old teacher called Abimael Pereira, was a lot less diplomatic. “We could try two things to resolve this conflict. One is that we put pressure on Congress and the Supreme Court, out on the streets, democratically,” he said. “The other is that those two buildings become our Twin Towers.” No further explanation was necessary, but he offered it anyway. “You know, we blow them up and kill everyone inside.”"
READ ARTICLE BY VINCENT BEVINS