At 9.24am on Wednesday, under a cloudless Florida sky, a man in a black bulletproof vest stepped off a private jet at Miami-Opa Locka airport. Flávio Bolsonaro, the far-right senator who had lost Brazil's presidential runoff three days earlier, said nothing to the two dozen journalists held back by customs agents. No supporters were waiting.

He was driven away in a dark grey SUV under police escort. The journey had begun in secrecy. After the vote, Bolsonaro vanished for more than 24 hours, until Argentine migration officials said he had crossed into the country by land on Tuesday night. A Gulfstream IV had reportedly been waiting at Puerto Iguazú airport since the previous morning, after Argentine media first reported his plan.

It left at about 11.30pm with his wife and two teenage daughters, flying via Ecuador, apparently to avoid Brazilian airspace. The words that followed mattered more than the flight. Seven hours after landing, Bolsonaro published a letter calling himself the "true president" of Brazil, thanking Argentina's Javier Milei and Donald Trump for their support.

Brazil's three biggest newspapers, Folha de S.Paulo, O Globo and O Estado de S.Paulo, all described it as coup-mongering. He later deleted it and replaced it with a version calling himself "the leader of Brazil", a retreat that suggests the first wording had gone too far even for his allies.