24 September 2021

Bolsonaro Needs Brazilians to Believe He’ll Stage a Coup

Eraldo Souza dos Santos

Following the coup that took place in Myanmar in early February, a video was posted online and quickly went viral. Filmed in the capital, Naypyidaw, it showed a fitness instructor performing aerobics to a bouncy dance tune as a military convoy passed behind her, on its way to parliament to oust the elected government. “As it isn’t uncommon for Nay Pyi Taw to have an official convoy, I thought it was normal so I continued,” the instructor, Khing Hnin Wai, wrote in a subsequent Facebook post.

More than six months later, on Aug. 10, a parody video spread widely on social networks in Brazil. This one showed a woman dancing to a similarly upbeat musical soundtrack outside the Presidential Palace in the capital, Brasilia, as tanks rolled by in the background as part of a military parade. The video’s message was not lost on anyone paying attention: President Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain with an avowed nostalgia for Brazil’s two-decade military dictatorship, had been saying for months that he might not accept the results of next year’s presidential election.

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