What happened to Jair Bolsonaro?

The funny thing is that the bland journalism of this harsh country can barely manage to cover and investigate the most striking news of the last few weeks: how did Bolsonaro's behavior change?

This would make for a constellation of news stories, all of which are of profound public interest and generate strong digital engagement.

Questions to ask: Who gave the "jolt" to the worm? At what point did the framing occur? Was it the military? Did Globo participate in the process? Paulo Guedes? Did the members of the broad fronts "point the way" for the 'president'? What was Wassef's role? Was Queiroz's arrest really a warning sign? Are the sons desperate? Has the hate cabinet collapsed?

These are basic, relevant, compelling, journalistic, technical, and necessary questions.

But which newsroom is willing to build a non-cowardly editorial department?

The concrete fact is this: there has been a drastic change in Bolsonaro's behavior. The situation is serious. The trauma was immense. He is silent, absolutely silenced. Who is running the government in his place?

Bolsonaro is showing signs that he wants to hold on until 2022. He's more than domesticated, he's "lobotomized."

Many will say, "I don't believe it." "It's deception."

Obviously it's dissimulation. But it's an unprecedented dissimulation, both in its duration – approaching 10 days – and in the (cynical) expression of pain, sadness, and "humility" from this crowd-pleaser who occupies the presidential chair.

Did the clown die? Did the terrorist escape? Did the dog thief sit on his own tail?

Bolsonaro wanders around Brasília with his ears down. And mind you, it's not just any ear (it's a big ear).

Meanwhile, the country reaches 60 deaths from Covid. Meanwhile, the peace-and-love press hides the Brazilian catastrophe (which international media outlets are showing) at the behest of the business community and the financial market, which celebrates the deaths of Black and poor people and the protection of white and rich people.

Meanwhile, millions of app-based delivery workers are staging an epic strike to escape conditions akin to slavery, a horror of the working world never imagined, even by the most pessimistic of apocalyptic and disintegrated social media commentators.

What's going on, anyway?

After the calm comes the storm, as the most worn-out cliché would say, carried on the shoulder of our rhetorical impatience.

Brazil is in turmoil, Brazilians are dying, and, incredibly, the press and the government are experiencing a lull, a mutual truce.

I wouldn't be optimistic about what's coming. It will be nothing short of explosive – and Brazil deserves an explosion.