The Paulista test never fails

Before a pandemic of mediocrity also spread through the universe of vote hunters, any small-town councilor learned in their first campaign that a large demonstration promoted by the adversary must be countered with an even larger, or at least equivalent, show of strength. If such a response isn’t possible, it’s better to accept that the opponent’s electorate is more numerous and start looking for ways to close the gap. “There are only these two alternatives,” taught congressman Tales Ramalho, from the state of Pernambuco, a luminary in politics. “Since only electoral delusion is stronger than romantic delusion, half the world prefers a third option, which never works: fighting the facts and pretending that what everyone saw and heard just didn’t happen.” Baffled by the massive demonstration that crowded Paulista Avenue, one of the most famous landmarks in the city of São Paulo, on February 25, that’s exactly what Lula and his High Comrades, Supreme Court justices, and nationalized journalists have been doing.

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In form and content, the reaction of the Consortium that commands Brazil informs us that Jair Bolsonaro’s detractors have committed two deadly sins. First: they underestimated the mobilization power of the former president and the dimensions of the Brazilian right. Second: they forgot to agree on what they would say if more people than they had anticipated showed up at Paulista. Confronted with reality, they ventured down a path marked by denialism, too narrow to accommodate so many lies. It was predictable that they would succumb to an outbreak of amateurish clumsiness that began on Sunday, escalated on Monday, continued in the following days, and has no end in sight.

In real life, one of the largest political demonstrations in Brazilian history took place on the last Sunday of February 2024. According to calculations made by the São Paulo state’s Public Security Secretariat, endorsed by impartial cameras, apolitical videos, and non-partisan drones, at the event’s climax, there were 600,000 protesters on the avenue itself and another 150,000 on adjacent streets. Even if the crowd wasn’t that numerous, nothing explains the choice for deception made by newspapers Folha de S.Paulo and Estadão. In headlines and texts, both reported the act had gathered “thousands” of people. “Wrong,” warn the editorial manuals. If the protesters exceed the 200,000 mark, the number must be reported as “hundreds of thousands.”

To camouflage the deceit, editors committed to blocking the growth of the Brazilian right resorted to a certain Monitor of Political Debate in Digital Media from the University of São Paulo (USP). At 3 p.m. on Sunday, the moment the USP’s doctors in statistical chicanery qualified as the “peak of the demonstration,” the Monitor located no more than 185,000 heads waiting for the speeches to begin and, by 5 p.m., there were just 45,000 around. In the 1950s, at the highest of his popularity, late President Jânio Quadros assured that if he spent five minutes drumming on a can at Viaduto do Chá (“Tea Viaduct”), he would gather more than 5,000 people. Seventy years later, Globo TV’s combatants stationed at their internet outlet, G1, spotted a mere 12,000 Bolsonarists on Paulista in the early afternoon. (The old press is much more generous with measurements associated with left-wing tribes. For two consecutive years, excited by the Gay Parade, Folha crammed 2 million revelers into the very same Paulista Avenue, squeezed between floats. It seems like too many. Yet, it’s almost nothing compared to the record reported by Globo in another Gay Parade: 4.5 million – no more, no less.)

Exemplarily peaceful, the demonstration on the 25th did not record a single police incident. Not even the cell phone thieves and pickpockets who always act at Workers’ Party’s rallies showed up on Paulista. (For some reason, their preferred target is comrade Eduardo Suplicy (a state representative in São Paulo, member of the Workers’ Party). So far, he has used the microphone on stage three times, asking to have at least his documents returned. He was not answered.)

The only incident linked to the demonstration occurred far from there. Historically, the Federal Police on duty at the Guarulhos airport only detains foreigners at the arrival due to problems involving luggage, documentation, or Interpol. Portuguese journalist Sérgio Tavares became the first to be investigated for what he carries in his mind. The Statement of Declarations drafted by the head of the “Sherlocks” summarizes the main topics covered in the two-hour testimony. The most relevant excerpt, reproduced in quotes without corrections, records that Tavares, following his lawyer’s advice, “remained silent when questioned about his statement on his blog that Brazil lives under a Judiciary Dictatorship, about his statement on his blog that the electronic voting machine is not reliable, his statement on his blog that Brazil is led by criminals, and when questioned about the events of January 8.”

In the course of the demonstration, not a single poster or banner with hostile inscriptions to people or institutions was seen. Thousands of Brazilian flags were joined by some of Israel. No aggressive slogans were heard, no speaker violated the Constitution or legal codes. Recounting the growing persecution suffered by Bolsonaro, Pastor Silas Malafaia explicitly referred to Supreme Court justices and raised the tone of criticism towards the Court’s decisions. But he didn’t tell a single scarce lie.

Accused of leading, orchestrating, or encouraging coups, genocides, attacks on the democratic regime, distribution of weapons, and hate cabinets, among other things, Bolsonaro made a calm and conciliatory speech. He proposed the enactment of amnesty, the release of illegally detained individuals, the restoration of the Rule of Law, and the ceasing of legal uncertainty. The various interpretations of his speech agree on one point: all government supporters want to see the speaker out of the political landscape. “Bolsonaro cornered in act on Paulista includes a new chapter of retreats in his trajectory,” stated one of Sunday’s digital edition headlines of Folha de S.Paulo. In Monday’s print edition, the “expert in everything” Igor Gielow warned that he had heard more than that: “Radicalism gives way to platitudes and whining,” he summarized. Also, he qualified Bolsonaro as “tchutchuca” (in this case, a “lap dog”).

On the morning of the 25th, Lula ordered his ministers to ignore the afternoon demonstration. The Chief of Staff, Rui Costa, obeyed the president. “I use my Sunday for nobler things,” he scorned on Monday. “Yesterday I spent time with my three children. I can’t comment on something I didn’t see.” Hours later, he decided to comment on what he hadn’t seen: “The whole of Brazil was surprised by the content,” he perfected the pose of indignation. “For the first time in history, people who committed ‘criminal events’ call for an event in a public square and, in the public square, in front of the crowd, confess the crime and go beyond that,” he continued, using poor grammar, “They ask for forgiveness, amnesty for the crimes committed.” Also, the minister of Social Communication, Paulo Pimenta, zigzagged. “It’s up to them to make an assessment,” he said after getting annoyed by a journalist who asked what he thought of the act. “When ‘we’ hold an act,” he suggested, “then you ask us if we thought it was good, if we thought it was bad, if there were more people than we wanted.”

On Sunday, Pimenta swore he hadn’t followed the demonstration. “Was I going to miss the ‘Grenal’ (which is a match between the Brazilian soccer teams Grêmio and Internacional)? For God’s sake!” he mocked. The truth is the game only started at 6 p.m., when the act on Paulista had already ended. On Monday, he analyzed what he officially hadn’t seen or heard. “It was the cry of a loser.” The president of the Workers’ Party, Gleisi Hoffmann, in turn, only dealt with numbers linked to the 44th anniversary of the party. On March 20th, a dinner in Brasília will gather hundreds of guests at the Brazil International Convention Center. In partnership with the first lady Janja da Silva, Gleisi decided that the invitations would be acquired through donations set at three values: R$ 350, R$ 5,000, or R$ 20,000 (equivalent to 30 monthly payments of the social program Bolsa Família, a government allowance for poor families).

Lula did his best to comply with his own order. He spent Sunday at the Alvorada Palace, probably discussing with Janja the few ideas the first couple has. On Monday, a journalist from newspaper Valor Econômico wanted to know from the president, in a chaotic press conference, if she could dare (that’s right: “dare”) ask him what he had to say about the demonstration. With a bewildered expression, Lula remained silent. Without opening his mouth, he said everything.

On the same Monday, the Federal Police (PF) promised to “include Bolsonaro’s speech in the investigations about the coup.” As the PF has become an arm of the majority of the Supreme Court, Lula decided on Tuesday to regain his voice and give an interview to RedeTV!, a free TV channel. At the beginning of his speech, he seemed to have also regained a bit of sense: “It’s not possible to deny a fact: they held a large demonstration in São Paulo,” he acknowledged. “Even those who don’t want to believe, just look at the image and there’s the big demonstration.” Pause. And then the grammar torturer turned completely back into the old Lula in his full-blown abominable self. “How people got there is another story,” he rambled. “The concrete fact is that it was a demonstration in defense of the coup.” While it was known that Lula doesn’t read or write, now the big news is that he also doesn’t understand what he hears.

The demonstration on February 25 was much more than “an act of support for Jair Bolsonaro.” It was the retaking of the streets by the Brazilian right. For the government Consortium, only the far-right, the “Big Center,” and the left, which includes the so-called “progressive field,” exist here in Brazil. In this cunning landscape, however, neither the far-left nor the right, which are perfectly visible in all civilized nations, appear. This deception has a short life, though. “I’ve seen teams without fans win championships, but I’ve never seen a government without people win an election,” Bolsonaro said in his speech. There were no coup plotters on Paulista. There was an ocean of Brazilians fighting for the country’s pacification, for the end of illegal arrests, and for adherence to the Constitution. Whatever Bolsonaro’s immediate fate, millions of voters accused of being coup plotters will show that fear is over. They are already mobilizing to decide municipal elections. The outcome may show that the campaign for the presidential succession has just begun on Paulista Avenue.