Military coups have been a periodic feature of Brazilian politics, from the putsch that felled the monarchy in 1889 to the military coup in 1964 that ended Brazil’s Second Republic. Coups in Brazil are usually portrayed as necessary defenses of democracy against the threats of authoritarian demagogues. The 1964 coup was justified as a preemptive measure against a communist-backed coup to install president João Goulart, a moderate social democrat proposing basic reforms, as a dictator. The momentum for the tanks on the streets was created through the historic “March of the Family with God for Liberty,” in which hundreds of thousands of middle-class Brazilians took to the streets against the Goulart government.

Once again, Brazil is facing a threat to its fragile democracy experiment, this time from a sitting president, the extreme-right Jair Bolsonaro, who is mobilizing his supporters in what has been dubbed the “Fuck You March” against Brazil’s Supreme Court and Congress.

Bolsonaro’s online supporters have been flooding social media for weeks with propaganda targeting institutions and individuals perceived as hostile to the president’s far-right agenda, and have called on people to follow security minister General Augusto Helano to the streets. The head of Brazil’s Military Club also called on “patriots,” claiming that “congress won’t let the executive govern!” A sample of the cheery democratic sentiments on display includes calls for “a final solution” to Brazil’s Congress and the execution of Supreme Court justices. This is a campaign funded by pro-Bolsonaro businessmen, many of whom were implicated in the illegal funding of fake news campaigns during the 2018 election campaign.