The other day Trump staged a hang sesh with Salvadorian president Bukele. He got the party rolling by saying that Bukele “is a friend of mine and we went through this together and got along very well during my entire period, uh, uh, of time.” Though he did not specify what they went through or what the “entire period, uh, uh, of time” was, viewers got the gist: these dictators are longstanding bros who have a lot in common. Or so Trump would want us to think.
Admittedly, the authoritarian bros have similarities. Both inherited their wealth, worked for their fathers and pretended to be populists to win presidential elections. Both have imprisoned over a hundred thousand suspected gang members (though it took Bukele two years and Trump two months). Both are democratically elected dictators. Both have unrestricted power and legal immunity (Bukele under a state of exception and Trump by executive order). Both use social media to promote their authority, with Bukele calling himself “the world’s coolest dictator” and Trump calling himself “King of America.” But who is cooler? A king, a thing of the past? Or a dictator, which is contemporary, literal and relevant?
Let’s begin with the obvious points of comparison: age and appearance. Bukele is 43, bearded, handsome, lean, gently sculpted and equally at home in “Gomorrah” suits and New Jersey dad wear. Trump is closing in on 80, looks like Jabba the Hutt in a blond wig and dresses like a McDonald’s Regional Manager. Enough said.
Moving on to the way they handle the news media. Bukele is casual and open and appears to have nothing to defend. His hand gestures are relaxed and nonchalant (another word for cool). Whether he’s kickin’ it in the Oval Office with Trump’s nerd brigade or hangin’ with his MS-13 homeys, his authoritarianism is smooth and natural. That’s how he rolls.
When asked whether he’d return wrongfully deported and imprisoned Ábrego García, Bukele simply shrugged and said, “The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist back to the United States?” When asked whether he’d release Garcia in his own country, he said, “You want us to go back to being the murder capital of the world?” Of course Garcia is not a terrorist or a murderous criminal. He’s more of the suburban dad type. But that’s not the point. What matters is how Bukele casually re-framed the questions and made his questioner look like a total dick.
Trump, on the other hand, hurled outright insults at the journalists: “He has very low ratings,” “They would love the criminals to go free,” “These are sick people” and “That’s why nobody watches CNN. You have no credibility.” Hands down, when it comes to handling the press, Bukele has the upper hand. Trump, on the other hand, is crude, insulting and puerile. A child of ten has more nuance.
Bukele credits himself with turning “the murder capitol of the world” into “the safest country in the western hemisphere.” Granted, since he took office, he has decreased the homicide rate in El Salvador by 98%. He accomplished this by arresting and imprisoning anyone with a gang-related tattoo, a method that Trump has recently put to use to no effective end.
Now let’s compare the economic policies of our dictatorial brohemes. Trump put tariffs on other countries; Bukele adopted Bitcoin as El Salvador’s national currency. It doesn’t take a genius to know that the idea of tariffs is antiquated. Even the word tariff is old as oil. The Bitcoin move, however, took futuristic balls, given the uncertainty and instability of crypto. Not only is Bitcoin avant-garde, it produces more electronic waste than the Netherlands, more greenhouse gas emissions than Slovenia and five times the carbon emissions of all the fiat currencies combined (coins, banknotes, credit cards, etc.). How’s that for fucking with liberal bitches?
But what makes Bitcoin really cool is that it’s awesome for criminal enterprises. Totally fucking unregulated and not subject to annoying and costly government controls, like interest rate adjustments. You’ve got to admit that Bukele’s focus on mass detention, combined with his libertarian approach to pollution and financial crime, is not just cool, but dystopian nightmare cool and way ahead of its time.
Now let’s compare Trump’s accomplishments, that is, what he has done to improve the lives of Americans, in the following paragraph. In high school English, I was taught that a paragraph had to be at least three sentences. This paragraph is exactly three sentences.
In the end, Trump is an anachronistic dictator of the Adolph Hitler mold. When he’s not berating and demeaning his perceived critics, he’s explaining things with hand gestures that look like he’s shooing off a bubonic ground squirrel. Bukele, by contrast, is a natural. He derives his authority by abandoning the clownish antics and dogma of dictators past. He embraces a creative approach to gutting democratic institutions, crushing civil liberties and consolidating power. He’s a dictator with panache.
But what makes Bukele the envy of Trump is not the unbuttoned collar or his experiments in hipster dictatorship, but his popularity. That was how he got his country’s supreme court to reinterpret the constitutional ban on consecutive re-election. That was a beyond-cool stroke of strongman acumen, and one that we can fully expect Trump to copy. But fail to replicate. Why? Because Trump doesn’t have Bukele’s 91% approval rating or an iota of his Salvadorian cool.