A day in the life of a military interventionist

At 7:14 am on the morning of September 7, Brazil’s Independence Day, I was stirred from sleep by the vibrations of my cell phone. “Today’s a day to wake up early, ma’am!” read a newly arrived WhatsApp message. My phone buzzed once more, showing me a photo of protesters dressed in green and yellow, set against a rising sun in the capital city of Brasília.

This was the beginning of my day immersed in the world of a militant group of demonstrators, who travel thousands of kilometers for days on end, believing that one day they will finally see “all power emanate from the people.”

Their goal is military intervention in Brazil, and once more, they would be left frustrated on September 7.

My unrequested wake-up call was sent by Reginaldo Verneque, nicknamed “Dom Werneck.” He runs an interventionist YouTube channel with tens of thousands of subscribers, and claims he has held his views on Brazilian politics “since the time when demanding military intervention was for crazy people.”

In other words, Werneck has been in favor of tanks on the streets since long before the election of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, when he was largely alone in his protests and mobilizations would rarely warrant a footnote in the mainstream media.

One of the feathers in his interventionist cap is being targeted by a Supreme Court inquiry investigating the organization of anti-democratic demonstrations in Brazil. The probe is sealed, but Werneck was happy to show me an excerpt of the investigation, citing his name. He says he is questioned by the Federal Police on a monthly basis, so much so that he has become friendly with his investigators. Interestingly, he doesn’t consider himself equal to the other individuals under investigation, saying he is an “old school interventionist” and not a “fair-weather Bolsonaro supporter.”

During Jair Bolsonaro’s time as a congressional back-bencher, before having the idea of running for president, Werneck was close to the far-right leader, working as a sort...