Palácio da Alvorada, Brasília, Brazil, mid-March 2020:
“You are understanding, I’m speaking Brazilian. Bolsonaro, it’s over. You are receiving a message on your cell phone. Everyone, every Brazilian is receiving messages on their cell phones. You are not president anymore. You need to give up.”1
These words were spoken by an unknown Haitian man to the country’s then-president, Jair Bolsonaro, on an ordinary Monday night, as Bolsonaro listened to his supporters outside the presidential residence as he used to do every day. Surrounded by the fans of the so-called “myth” (mito)2 and by many cell phone cameras, the man articulates the sentences calmly and with an accent that denounces his condition as a foreigner. There is a brief exchange of words between the two, intercut by the legion of Bolsonaro admirers—but there is no dialogue. The man’s tone is not one of asking or waiting for...
University of California Press