Pro-Bolsonaro protests: neither a flop, nor overwhelming

As The Brazilian Report described on Sunday afternoon, the May 26 protests in favor of President Jair Bolsonaro could have gone one of three ways. The uncertainty around the demonstration meant that crowds could feasibly have been very large, or very small. However, as is often the case, the truth lay somewhere in the middle.

Rallies earlier in the day in Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte brought modest crowds, with police forces in the capital estimating a group of 10,000 people gathering to show their support for the embattled Mr. Bolsonaro. In Rio de Janeiro, the event took up roughly seven blocks of Avenida Atlântica in Copacabana, with G1 estimating four densely populated blocks at each end of the rally, with a large and sparse space in between.

The main event was held in...