Mediatization, polarization, and intolerance (between environments, media, and circulation)

Antônio Fausto Neto 212 4.2. When does to say mean to do? The device created at the entrance to the presiden- tial palace remained the place where the president while be- ing honored by his followers, sharpened his verbal attacks on journalist T s h . ey continued to be the target of critique and attacks by the president, according to verbal escalation. The tone and ef- fects of the message sent by the president to journalists evoked a threat that would overpass the linguistic boundaries, as he made an order whose limit was the interruption of any message by the journalist interlocutor. When asked by a reporter about changes in the Federal Police, he ordered, violently, in an injunctive tone: “Shut up! Shut up!” (FSP, 05/10/2020). The reply came from the journalistic field itself, from a newspaper ombudsman: “We are not at war and we must ensure that the ‘shut up’ died, and its ghost does not scare us.” It is in the context of this scenario, within the limits of this environment, and according to untimely protocols, that the president’s forms of contact with the media institutions became more strained. It aggravated the way of an- swering a journalist’s question about his responsibility given the large number of deaths caused by the coronavirus, and stat- ed, in response: “The question is so stupid that I will not answer it” (FSP, 04/29/2020). By the tactic of “verbal counterattack,” he refused to answer the question. Something like these two incidents was repeated days later. When asked by a reporter on the same subject, he replied: “So what? I am sorry. What do you want me to do? I am Messiah, but I do not perform miracles” (ESP, 28/04/2020). He shifted the attempt to answer the question on the same issue, disdain- ing the figure of governors and mayors: “The press has to ask Dória why more people are losing their lives in São Paulo. There is no point in the press putting everything in my account. My opinion is not valid, what is valid is the decrees of the governors and mayors” (FSP, 04/29/2020). With the appointment of the second minister of health, he once again attacked the guidelines on relaxation. But, in response to pressure from the President, the new minister of health, recently appointed by him, reaf- firmed the sanitary theses, and he said that “nobody is thinking