Stephanie Virginia Reist is a lecturer in civic, liberal, and global education at Stanford University.
Brazilian activist and politician Marielle Franco was assassinated five years ago by killers connected to the country’s military and police. Those likely behind her death were part of a reactionary mafia with close ties to the right-wing establishment.
Bolsonaro’s Brazil is ruled by a politics of death: who deserves it, who is spared, and who gets to dispense it. Meet the most skilled practitioner of this politics: Rio governor Wilson Witzel.
The investigation into the murder of Marielle Franco keeps bumping up against the most powerful people in Brazil — like President Jair Bolsonaro. They don’t want us to find out the truth.
Brazil’s fascist president loves to say that “a good thug is a dead thug.” But the saying didn’t start with him — it has deep roots in Brazil’s violent, racist political economy.