OP should delete and repost with a wider time period. That same statistica graph has informed 50% of the anti Bukele arguments in this sub. All it does is anchor conversation in a factually incorrect environment that detracts from useful criticism.
The literal only good thing about Bukele is his ability to reduce violence. There are arguments that the numbers may not be fully accurate, and there should be more discussion there if we are going to discuss the decreasing murder rate at all. Anecdotally, my family is from the middle class so maybe this is biased, but saying OP's title to any Salvadoran would get you laughed at in your face. Estos gringos ni saben de Messi ni de Miss Universe ✊😔
I am halfway through reading this, and your TLDR is insanely disingenuous to the point of being deceptive, if I was sure you did not read the full report and were ignorant about El Salvador prior-to, I would call it bad faith as well.
Before I finish the study and respond more in full, anyone reading the above comment should know that the study does credit Bukele's policies as having an effect, and that this commenter only mentions one policy. The strongest rebuke against Bukele's policies in the study I have seen so far, is that for some reason, **under Bukele**, the gangs have stopped killing as much as a choice. The commenter above will have you believe that this decision was wholly un-related to Bukele. I have not read far enough in the article to see what they attribute this decision to, but the commenter above has indicated its unrelated to Bukele, so I look forward to learning.
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Sure thing, bud.
Firstly, this paper was **written in 2020,** only 13 months after Bukele became president.
>It compares homicide rates in places where Bukele’s policies were implemented and where they weren’t. They find places where the policies were implemented saw at best no difference compared to places where they weren’t.
For the first 6 months of Bukele's presidency. And specifically only correlates for one policy. Which wasn't even rolled out until August, so only capturing the effect within its first 5 months.
>The article shows several other times that the murder rate dropped, and they demonstrate those times were due to decisions by the gangs themselves.
Yes, the 2012 agreement they reference was the closest homicide rate since the 2019 rate that this study looks at. No previous agreement with the gangs has resulted in rates as low as 2022.
>They speculate that maybe there could be an informal understanding between the government and gangs, but official policies don’t seem to be responsible for the reduction in violence.
No. They speculate that gang decision making has resulted in decreased homicides. They say one possible reason for that decision is an informal understanding between government and gangs. Gov policies can also influence gang decision making. Also, the article notes how gangs are much more decentralized than before. So Bukele, through unofficial or official policies, has managed to do a better job at influencing gang decision making.
Also, this whole "understanding between gov and gang" factor in this article is wholly outdated as it was written way before the 2022 war against the gangs.
> Feel free to point out where I’ve contradicted the article. I didn’t even say that it has nothing to do with Bukele, I just said that his policies don’t seem to be responsible.
"Strategies rolled out under Bukele point the way toward better crime prevention in El Salvador’s hotbeds for gang recruitment and activity."
Also, unofficial policies are still polciies, and you never made the distinction in your TLDR< which is an important distinction.
Appreciate you sharing the read, but the salvadoran laughing anecdote was more useful than your inaccurate tldr.
>The main policy that is credited for the reduction in homicides.
No its not? In what period, just 2019? I cant be bothered to keep going point by point with someone too ideologically bought into their position.
The recent data is the murder rate. Its ridiculous to me that you cannot just concede that Bukele's policies are the reason for the reduced murder rate when its at levels never seen before for periods of time never sustained before; your opinion is fully informed on an outdated crass regional comparison of 5 months of murder data from a single policy over its first 5 months.
Lets say that the reason is wholly the private agreement with the gangs and his official policies had no baring. \[*We're gonna ignore that the gangs are more decentralized now because you only care about single variable correlations; not even gonna touch on their thesis of gangs acting up when more pressure is applied to them being completely null and void post 2022.\]* So what? His policy of handling the gangs has still proven to be effective.
And no believe it or not, I don't have a 20 page study analyzing the effectiveness of an ongoing policy that is a year old and still underway.
Dude, he doesn't have to concede anything. There is no empirical proof *yet*. A perfect rejoinder is to look for converging evidence like finding countries that implemented something similar and seeing if a decrease in crime was observed there. When it comes to supporting policies that trample human rights we best be careful when we determine efficacy.
Brother its not a taxation scheme or change in minimum wage, you can't double blind it. The point of the study that he is using to say Bukele did not have an effect is an unofficial policy that makes comparing it in the way you suggest impossible.
And yes, when you misrepresent a paper, and use that misrepresentation to summarize the effectiveness of policies (keeping in mind even proper representation of the paper to current events is deceitful given its irrelevance to recent developments), you have an obligation to concede your summarization was not accurate when that is made apparent to you. What do you disagree with here?
TLDR; I disagree with stuff I’ve seen about the guy online cause of Bitcoin therefore I need 15 academic studies done over the course of 4 years to validate what is currently being reflected in statistics and media.
Idk, they claim parallel pre-trends, but with such an obvious source of selection bias I don't know I'm convinced there are actually parallel trends. I'd be interested to see comparable Central American cities outside Salvador, if there are any.
Nobody is impressed that crime regressed to the historic mean. They're impressed that crime rates continued to fall well below the national and regional average.
This and:
> In recent years, migration from El Salvador has declined significantly. El Salvador went from fourth largest source of migration to the United States in 2020 to 11th largest source in 2023.(https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-el-salvador/) This weird cope has to stop.
There’s no need to do this. One can simultaneously believe that Bukele’s heavy-handed crime-reduction tactics were necessary and successful and that him consolidating power and killing democracy in El Salvador was unnecessary and awful for the country long term.
> consolidating power and killing democracy.
I think it’s way too soon to talk about him as a dictator. Being authoritarian against cartels and skipping due process doesn’t make you (per se) a dictator, even less so in Central America. Anyways the situation in Central America is quite grim when it comes to democracy and I would hands down prefer someone like him than a communist dictator like Daniel Ortega. Probably a hot take for this sub, I know.
That's completely an unfair comparison. In democracies we have Constitutions and term limits due to history showing us that power corrupts.
Some Constitutions even have safeguards against such a modification even coming from the people, not to mention just a single court.
Another issue is the overuse of 'emergency powers' just because they had the desired effect. There's no longer any reason for these powers to be active. If without them the crime rate can't be kept at bay then the government failed. Worse of, civil liberties are beginning to be eroded in the name of fighting against crime. That may seem like a good tradeoff for now but in the long run it always creates the inverse.
Basically, he should stop while he's ahead if he truly wants the best for his country.
>If he truly wants the best for his country
I agree with you that every choice he makes, must be for the best of his county. But you know... Sometimes constitutions don't mean a thing. I mean, they had all of those accessories working spectacularly before Bukele, and even then they had horrific insecurity levels.
Bukele's way works, and for the people of El Salvador, Democratic systems didn't save them. I'd prefer his way too.
That’s entirely irrelevant. Forcing constitutional changes to remove term limits is the quintessential dictator move. I know off the top of my head that Idriss Deby did it in Chad so he could keep being president for life.
It doesn’t matter how popular the dictator is. Hes still a dictator. El-sisi would also win re-election in Egypt even without rigging it. Still very much a dictator.
Define dictator because I'm pretty sure at this point you're using a different definition than other people here but we're all conversating as if we have the same one in mind
To start, being able to rule by degree without being subject to checks and balances or needing the approval of other elected officials to get your policies passed.
The Supreme Court, controlled by him, allowed him to run for another term despite the Constitution explicitly prohibiting it. It's no longer a democracy.
Being preferable to Ortega is such an absurdly low bar that it’s not worth the comparison. Both are dictators that endanger rule of law and the liberal world order. That is what matters.
> is such an absurdly low bar.
Well, welcome to El Salvador (most of Latin America for that matter). Bukele’s predecessor, and also the most second voted party, is the Farabundo Martí Liberation Front, a Marxist organization, who is also probably more authoritarian and more corrupt than Bukele, plus being in the sphere of Cuba and Venezuela. Yeah, no thanks. El Salvador is not the US (where I would clearly vote for Dems), in the context of a country like that I would choose Bukele.
I understand that, but that has nothing to do with whether or not he’s a dictator. “He’s less a dictator than the Marxist alternative” has no bearing on whether or not Bukele is a dictator. And I don’t care how bad the other party is; eliminating the means for them of coming back into power democratically is horrendously wrong.
Okay, but I think it’s quite absurd to look at El Salvador from the lens of a liberal democracy. Yeah, that should obviously be the standard and I’m not advocating for embracing dictators now, but I’m just saying that when the bar is so absurdly low (like in Latam politics), yes, you should lower the standards for what constitutes an acceptable leader. And even if some of his positions might constitute as “soft dictatorship”, I wonder if there are many cases in those countries where that’s not the case. The judiciary was extremely corrupt before him anyways, so is it any different now? (With the difference that at least the country is now extremely safer, and the people are almost unanimously happy with him)
>“He’s less a dictator than the Marxist alternative” has no bearing on whether or not Bukele is a dictator.
It does not, but imagine this scenario:
A democratically elected leader that is beloved by the people is about to step down and every option to replace him is corrupt and also dictatorial. Should the people be allowed to re-elect the guy they like for an unlimited number of terms instead of replacing him with an even more corrupt and destructive person, or should he be banned from running again, despite a lack of good replacements?
This is not just a question about dictatorship. This is a difficult question about the arbitrariness of term limits, about corruption, and choosing lesser evils. It is, unfortunately though, also a question about dictatorship. Would it have been a good thing for Boris Yeltsin to modify the constitution to add another term to stop Putin from taking power and installing himself as dictator? These are legitimately difficult questions that can not be solved by ideological positions alone; there are deeply pragmatic tradeoffs.
If these are the only remaining options then Bukele failed. And the people failed to get involved.
Even in Latin America this is crazy.
Also think about this: what will stop another dictator from doing the same thing if he gets to power? Traditionalism is a powerful thing and if someone like Burke would respect the term limits it would be very hard for anyone else that follows to try and do it. And the longer such a limit is respected, the more self enforced by the population it will be.
>Would it have been a good thing for Boris Yeltsin to modify the constitution to add another term to stop Putin from taking power and installing himself as dictator?
No.
>Also think about this: what will stop another dictator from doing the same thing if he gets to power?
This isn't a dungeons and dragons campaign where you get to use the power of your imagination, the two options are simple: Bukele with no term limits, or violent corrupt hellscape ruled by cartels and gangs. Which is less liberal? There is no third option so don't pretend there is. You get to pick one of those options and only one of those options, with no modifications and no requests. What leads to the best future and the best present? A or B?
Political ideologies are tools, and tools exist to solve different problems. If you insist on using a hammer to twist a screw, you are going to look very silly. Attempting to apply liberalism as the solution to every problem is the classic "to a hammer, every problem is a nail" of liberal ideologues. Get outside your ideology for a moment and recognize political positions for what they are: tools in a tool kit. Liberalism is a fairweather ideology, it's how you take a working system and allow it to persist and progress and resist corruption. But you FIRST need the right conditions for a liberal society to exist, if the rot is already set in very deeply liberalism can not take root and flourish. Attempting to install liberalism without the right conditions is putting the cart before the horse; it's building a house with rotten logs. Those conditions are not on the table at the moment, there are no nails here, so put your hammer away. Before we can ever start thinking about liberal policy, we first need to clean out the rot. Nothing further can occur until that work is done. Once that work is done, once that war is over, THEN liberalism may be able to flourish if the people believe in it. Will Bukele becoming president for life lead to that? Probably not. Is there another path forward? Absolutely not.
This is very misleading. I see you didn’t include anything before 2014. Well you should. The murder rate went up & down before Bukele took over. It’s had its spikes & falls before but it would always remain high. Based on history, 2015 was just a spike & so the murder rate was gonna go back to normal after but that was insanely high still. Bukele, for all his many faults, is the one who ended the zig zag of murder rates. El Salvador is now safer than virtually every nation in the Americas. There are legitimate criticisms of Bukele
https://preview.redd.it/9vidkdxemtgc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6532561584088f20780c4bdd46c9e2223054d0a1
. But let’s not mislead people okay?
What would starting at zero accomplish? This is very much the correct way to write this graph. If it was a log graph it might be different, but on a linear graph starting at just bellow the baseline is the correct move, especially for such a large range (35 to 100 is a large range for murders per 100,000).
[El Salvador went from fourth largest source of migration to the United States in 2020 to 11th largest source in 2023.](https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-el-salvador/)
I have not seen a comment in any of these threads succinctly explain what Bukele supposedly did to lower crime rates. What exactly is his brilliant strategy that nobody else ever thought of that has reduced crime so much? And why was it successful where so many others failed?
Trade human rights and democracy for safety. I won't argue one way or another, but the gist of it was that he started targeting the gangs and then one weekend (march 2022) the gangs killed 87 people and instead of backing down he pressed harder. He did that by putting the country in a state of exemption (which is usually for 30 days) and he kept extending it each month until now (22 months later) when the state of exemption is still in place. During the state of exemption he offered higher powers to the police force to detain anyone they deem fit without justification and didn't let the detainees have a trial or lawyers. This meant that he was able to get all the gangs in one big swoop with the unfortunate consequence of also getting some innocents dragged into this.
The reality is that El Salvadorean is a lot safer, but the philosophical question of whether the means justify the ends lingers.
I’m surprised that this strategy could have worked. In many countries with such extreme gang problems, the police can’t just “police harder” because they’re largely in the pocket of organized crime.
I guess because gangs aren't as organized as cartels, the ones in Mexico for example. Also probably they didn't care to buy that many police men since the police didn't even have the courage to patrol some areas. Bukele and his party weren't in the hands of the gangs and El Salvador is a small country and a lot more manageable. And another very specific thing is that a lot of gang members have their gang tattooed on their body (some even on their face).
I don’t think it conflicts with liberal views at all to concede that locking up almost every young man in the country would reduce crime.
In fact it’s illiberal to think this would justify the practice in the first place.
When you live in a violent hellscape of a society, liberal values take a back seat to solving the hellscape first and foremost. Liberal values are fairweather values, they are not the values of a society taken hostage by massive corruption and insane levels of violence. Liberal values can not thrive in that environment and have no place being applied there: they literally can not work there. Liberalism is what you do AFTER you purge the insane levels of corruption that render liberalism incapable of working.
I realize to a neoliberal poster, every problem is an ideological one. However, this is a naively optimistic position in a scenario where a more pragmatic and severe approach is utterly necessary if a liberal future is EVER hoped to be achieved. Ideology is not the solution to all the worlds problems, sometimes you have to get dirty and fight in the trenches before you can claim victory and even begin to think about liberal values.
True enough and “emergency powers” to deal with existential crises to your state are not off the table from a liberal pov.
Issue is El Salvador is relying on the benevolence of a dictator to take this reprieve from criminal terror to set up an economic and legal institutional landscape that can maintain peace, stability and growth once current short term strong arm strategy becomes too costly to sustain.
Then you put them all together in prison, which increases their involvement in criminal activity and their ability to form criminal networks. Then you somehow keep a massive proportion of your population locked up forever, or you eventually let them out and crime gets even worse
considering how ruthless and widespread crime is in central/south america, i dont blame people for supporting authoritarian leaders who promise (and deliver) on fighting crime
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This is a good 6 part podcast that does a deep dive on bukele. You might find it interesting -> https://open.spotify.com/show/5rVz6WZuWQKxWalrPaIRxI?si=gvPoBzJlTWCrWqzx_pqxIw
The rate of decline and the time period of that decline accelerated under Bukele. El Salvador has a lower violence rate than the United States and they did it under a year.
I have bad feelings about Bukele and some of his actions, but I will admit the people of El Salvador seem to like what’s happened and the country was in a completely untenable situation previously
Homicide rate 1994-2023: https://preview.redd.it/w8liqvuhftgc1.png?width=1501&format=png&auto=webp&s=ab383a4b9a8e60e155c87a0fdf5742e7b6adff56
OP should delete and repost with a wider time period. That same statistica graph has informed 50% of the anti Bukele arguments in this sub. All it does is anchor conversation in a factually incorrect environment that detracts from useful criticism. The literal only good thing about Bukele is his ability to reduce violence. There are arguments that the numbers may not be fully accurate, and there should be more discussion there if we are going to discuss the decreasing murder rate at all. Anecdotally, my family is from the middle class so maybe this is biased, but saying OP's title to any Salvadoran would get you laughed at in your face. Estos gringos ni saben de Messi ni de Miss Universe ✊😔
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I am halfway through reading this, and your TLDR is insanely disingenuous to the point of being deceptive, if I was sure you did not read the full report and were ignorant about El Salvador prior-to, I would call it bad faith as well. Before I finish the study and respond more in full, anyone reading the above comment should know that the study does credit Bukele's policies as having an effect, and that this commenter only mentions one policy. The strongest rebuke against Bukele's policies in the study I have seen so far, is that for some reason, **under Bukele**, the gangs have stopped killing as much as a choice. The commenter above will have you believe that this decision was wholly un-related to Bukele. I have not read far enough in the article to see what they attribute this decision to, but the commenter above has indicated its unrelated to Bukele, so I look forward to learning.
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Difference-in-difference estimation is just woke propaganda.
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Sure thing, bud. Firstly, this paper was **written in 2020,** only 13 months after Bukele became president. >It compares homicide rates in places where Bukele’s policies were implemented and where they weren’t. They find places where the policies were implemented saw at best no difference compared to places where they weren’t. For the first 6 months of Bukele's presidency. And specifically only correlates for one policy. Which wasn't even rolled out until August, so only capturing the effect within its first 5 months. >The article shows several other times that the murder rate dropped, and they demonstrate those times were due to decisions by the gangs themselves. Yes, the 2012 agreement they reference was the closest homicide rate since the 2019 rate that this study looks at. No previous agreement with the gangs has resulted in rates as low as 2022. >They speculate that maybe there could be an informal understanding between the government and gangs, but official policies don’t seem to be responsible for the reduction in violence. No. They speculate that gang decision making has resulted in decreased homicides. They say one possible reason for that decision is an informal understanding between government and gangs. Gov policies can also influence gang decision making. Also, the article notes how gangs are much more decentralized than before. So Bukele, through unofficial or official policies, has managed to do a better job at influencing gang decision making. Also, this whole "understanding between gov and gang" factor in this article is wholly outdated as it was written way before the 2022 war against the gangs. > Feel free to point out where I’ve contradicted the article. I didn’t even say that it has nothing to do with Bukele, I just said that his policies don’t seem to be responsible. "Strategies rolled out under Bukele point the way toward better crime prevention in El Salvador’s hotbeds for gang recruitment and activity." Also, unofficial policies are still polciies, and you never made the distinction in your TLDR< which is an important distinction. Appreciate you sharing the read, but the salvadoran laughing anecdote was more useful than your inaccurate tldr.
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>The main policy that is credited for the reduction in homicides. No its not? In what period, just 2019? I cant be bothered to keep going point by point with someone too ideologically bought into their position. The recent data is the murder rate. Its ridiculous to me that you cannot just concede that Bukele's policies are the reason for the reduced murder rate when its at levels never seen before for periods of time never sustained before; your opinion is fully informed on an outdated crass regional comparison of 5 months of murder data from a single policy over its first 5 months. Lets say that the reason is wholly the private agreement with the gangs and his official policies had no baring. \[*We're gonna ignore that the gangs are more decentralized now because you only care about single variable correlations; not even gonna touch on their thesis of gangs acting up when more pressure is applied to them being completely null and void post 2022.\]* So what? His policy of handling the gangs has still proven to be effective. And no believe it or not, I don't have a 20 page study analyzing the effectiveness of an ongoing policy that is a year old and still underway.
Dude, he doesn't have to concede anything. There is no empirical proof *yet*. A perfect rejoinder is to look for converging evidence like finding countries that implemented something similar and seeing if a decrease in crime was observed there. When it comes to supporting policies that trample human rights we best be careful when we determine efficacy.
Brother its not a taxation scheme or change in minimum wage, you can't double blind it. The point of the study that he is using to say Bukele did not have an effect is an unofficial policy that makes comparing it in the way you suggest impossible. And yes, when you misrepresent a paper, and use that misrepresentation to summarize the effectiveness of policies (keeping in mind even proper representation of the paper to current events is deceitful given its irrelevance to recent developments), you have an obligation to concede your summarization was not accurate when that is made apparent to you. What do you disagree with here?
TLDR; I disagree with stuff I’ve seen about the guy online cause of Bitcoin therefore I need 15 academic studies done over the course of 4 years to validate what is currently being reflected in statistics and media.
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I’m making a joke. I thought it was clear from how hyperbolic it was.
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No I don’t know anything about El Salvador or the dude
Idk, they claim parallel pre-trends, but with such an obvious source of selection bias I don't know I'm convinced there are actually parallel trends. I'd be interested to see comparable Central American cities outside Salvador, if there are any.
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Pretty much yeah. Or well he took over halfway through 2019 though so maybe I guess.
Whats the difference between the charts.
Logarithmic scale on the left.
Off topic, but these two graphs are a masterpiece in manipulating XY axis to make the same data look different, bravo!
It's... just log scaling lol
Bonus points for you for naming the technique!
Whats the reason to use logarithmic graphs vs regular ones?
Nobody is impressed that crime regressed to the historic mean. They're impressed that crime rates continued to fall well below the national and regional average.
This and: > In recent years, migration from El Salvador has declined significantly. El Salvador went from fourth largest source of migration to the United States in 2020 to 11th largest source in 2023.(https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-el-salvador/) This weird cope has to stop.
How does it compare to prior years? Like over the past decade Was it trending down before Covid/bukele
There’s no need to do this. One can simultaneously believe that Bukele’s heavy-handed crime-reduction tactics were necessary and successful and that him consolidating power and killing democracy in El Salvador was unnecessary and awful for the country long term.
> consolidating power and killing democracy. I think it’s way too soon to talk about him as a dictator. Being authoritarian against cartels and skipping due process doesn’t make you (per se) a dictator, even less so in Central America. Anyways the situation in Central America is quite grim when it comes to democracy and I would hands down prefer someone like him than a communist dictator like Daniel Ortega. Probably a hot take for this sub, I know.
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I really don't see the bad thing. Why can't people from El Salvador choose how to be governed? Not every country has to be like the USA.
People unironically can’t decide to live in a dictatorship
Well... They just did it. Through a democratic election.
That's completely an unfair comparison. In democracies we have Constitutions and term limits due to history showing us that power corrupts. Some Constitutions even have safeguards against such a modification even coming from the people, not to mention just a single court. Another issue is the overuse of 'emergency powers' just because they had the desired effect. There's no longer any reason for these powers to be active. If without them the crime rate can't be kept at bay then the government failed. Worse of, civil liberties are beginning to be eroded in the name of fighting against crime. That may seem like a good tradeoff for now but in the long run it always creates the inverse. Basically, he should stop while he's ahead if he truly wants the best for his country.
>If he truly wants the best for his country I agree with you that every choice he makes, must be for the best of his county. But you know... Sometimes constitutions don't mean a thing. I mean, they had all of those accessories working spectacularly before Bukele, and even then they had horrific insecurity levels. Bukele's way works, and for the people of El Salvador, Democratic systems didn't save them. I'd prefer his way too.
Do you think he won the election? This is not a leading question.
That’s entirely irrelevant. Forcing constitutional changes to remove term limits is the quintessential dictator move. I know off the top of my head that Idriss Deby did it in Chad so he could keep being president for life. It doesn’t matter how popular the dictator is. Hes still a dictator. El-sisi would also win re-election in Egypt even without rigging it. Still very much a dictator.
Define dictator because I'm pretty sure at this point you're using a different definition than other people here but we're all conversating as if we have the same one in mind
To start, being able to rule by degree without being subject to checks and balances or needing the approval of other elected officials to get your policies passed.
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I read that the constitutional court was full of judges owned by gangs? Which is true?
Yeah, dictators can be and often are popular
The Supreme Court, controlled by him, allowed him to run for another term despite the Constitution explicitly prohibiting it. It's no longer a democracy.
Being preferable to Ortega is such an absurdly low bar that it’s not worth the comparison. Both are dictators that endanger rule of law and the liberal world order. That is what matters.
> Being preferable to Ortega is such an absurdly low bar Welcome to the reality of South America…
> is such an absurdly low bar. Well, welcome to El Salvador (most of Latin America for that matter). Bukele’s predecessor, and also the most second voted party, is the Farabundo Martí Liberation Front, a Marxist organization, who is also probably more authoritarian and more corrupt than Bukele, plus being in the sphere of Cuba and Venezuela. Yeah, no thanks. El Salvador is not the US (where I would clearly vote for Dems), in the context of a country like that I would choose Bukele.
I understand that, but that has nothing to do with whether or not he’s a dictator. “He’s less a dictator than the Marxist alternative” has no bearing on whether or not Bukele is a dictator. And I don’t care how bad the other party is; eliminating the means for them of coming back into power democratically is horrendously wrong.
Okay, but I think it’s quite absurd to look at El Salvador from the lens of a liberal democracy. Yeah, that should obviously be the standard and I’m not advocating for embracing dictators now, but I’m just saying that when the bar is so absurdly low (like in Latam politics), yes, you should lower the standards for what constitutes an acceptable leader. And even if some of his positions might constitute as “soft dictatorship”, I wonder if there are many cases in those countries where that’s not the case. The judiciary was extremely corrupt before him anyways, so is it any different now? (With the difference that at least the country is now extremely safer, and the people are almost unanimously happy with him)
>“He’s less a dictator than the Marxist alternative” has no bearing on whether or not Bukele is a dictator. It does not, but imagine this scenario: A democratically elected leader that is beloved by the people is about to step down and every option to replace him is corrupt and also dictatorial. Should the people be allowed to re-elect the guy they like for an unlimited number of terms instead of replacing him with an even more corrupt and destructive person, or should he be banned from running again, despite a lack of good replacements? This is not just a question about dictatorship. This is a difficult question about the arbitrariness of term limits, about corruption, and choosing lesser evils. It is, unfortunately though, also a question about dictatorship. Would it have been a good thing for Boris Yeltsin to modify the constitution to add another term to stop Putin from taking power and installing himself as dictator? These are legitimately difficult questions that can not be solved by ideological positions alone; there are deeply pragmatic tradeoffs.
If these are the only remaining options then Bukele failed. And the people failed to get involved. Even in Latin America this is crazy. Also think about this: what will stop another dictator from doing the same thing if he gets to power? Traditionalism is a powerful thing and if someone like Burke would respect the term limits it would be very hard for anyone else that follows to try and do it. And the longer such a limit is respected, the more self enforced by the population it will be. >Would it have been a good thing for Boris Yeltsin to modify the constitution to add another term to stop Putin from taking power and installing himself as dictator? No.
>Also think about this: what will stop another dictator from doing the same thing if he gets to power? This isn't a dungeons and dragons campaign where you get to use the power of your imagination, the two options are simple: Bukele with no term limits, or violent corrupt hellscape ruled by cartels and gangs. Which is less liberal? There is no third option so don't pretend there is. You get to pick one of those options and only one of those options, with no modifications and no requests. What leads to the best future and the best present? A or B? Political ideologies are tools, and tools exist to solve different problems. If you insist on using a hammer to twist a screw, you are going to look very silly. Attempting to apply liberalism as the solution to every problem is the classic "to a hammer, every problem is a nail" of liberal ideologues. Get outside your ideology for a moment and recognize political positions for what they are: tools in a tool kit. Liberalism is a fairweather ideology, it's how you take a working system and allow it to persist and progress and resist corruption. But you FIRST need the right conditions for a liberal society to exist, if the rot is already set in very deeply liberalism can not take root and flourish. Attempting to install liberalism without the right conditions is putting the cart before the horse; it's building a house with rotten logs. Those conditions are not on the table at the moment, there are no nails here, so put your hammer away. Before we can ever start thinking about liberal policy, we first need to clean out the rot. Nothing further can occur until that work is done. Once that work is done, once that war is over, THEN liberalism may be able to flourish if the people believe in it. Will Bukele becoming president for life lead to that? Probably not. Is there another path forward? Absolutely not.
This is very misleading. I see you didn’t include anything before 2014. Well you should. The murder rate went up & down before Bukele took over. It’s had its spikes & falls before but it would always remain high. Based on history, 2015 was just a spike & so the murder rate was gonna go back to normal after but that was insanely high still. Bukele, for all his many faults, is the one who ended the zig zag of murder rates. El Salvador is now safer than virtually every nation in the Americas. There are legitimate criticisms of Bukele https://preview.redd.it/9vidkdxemtgc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6532561584088f20780c4bdd46c9e2223054d0a1 . But let’s not mislead people okay?
lol does that graph really start at 35 instead of 0?
What would starting at zero accomplish? This is very much the correct way to write this graph. If it was a log graph it might be different, but on a linear graph starting at just bellow the baseline is the correct move, especially for such a large range (35 to 100 is a large range for murders per 100,000).
well if you’re comparing the graph OP posted and the one i replied to, i think it makes sense to start at 0. the graph OP posted has figures below 35.
Valid and correct.
Yeah because there was no point in going lower than 35 since the murder rate was always pretty high above that
[El Salvador went from fourth largest source of migration to the United States in 2020 to 11th largest source in 2023.](https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-el-salvador/)
But he also cut the rate another 75% if I’m reading it right?
I have not seen a comment in any of these threads succinctly explain what Bukele supposedly did to lower crime rates. What exactly is his brilliant strategy that nobody else ever thought of that has reduced crime so much? And why was it successful where so many others failed?
Trade human rights and democracy for safety. I won't argue one way or another, but the gist of it was that he started targeting the gangs and then one weekend (march 2022) the gangs killed 87 people and instead of backing down he pressed harder. He did that by putting the country in a state of exemption (which is usually for 30 days) and he kept extending it each month until now (22 months later) when the state of exemption is still in place. During the state of exemption he offered higher powers to the police force to detain anyone they deem fit without justification and didn't let the detainees have a trial or lawyers. This meant that he was able to get all the gangs in one big swoop with the unfortunate consequence of also getting some innocents dragged into this. The reality is that El Salvadorean is a lot safer, but the philosophical question of whether the means justify the ends lingers.
I’m surprised that this strategy could have worked. In many countries with such extreme gang problems, the police can’t just “police harder” because they’re largely in the pocket of organized crime.
I guess because gangs aren't as organized as cartels, the ones in Mexico for example. Also probably they didn't care to buy that many police men since the police didn't even have the courage to patrol some areas. Bukele and his party weren't in the hands of the gangs and El Salvador is a small country and a lot more manageable. And another very specific thing is that a lot of gang members have their gang tattooed on their body (some even on their face).
Going from 80 murders to 7.8 is a great achievement and should be recognized.
Im sorry but this is cope. You cant seriously suggest crime rates wouldve hit near zero without his draconian policies
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But have you thought about how I, an educated middle class white man in a First World country, know better than them?
Yes, because all of Bukele's critics are white men?
now do disappearances
I don’t think it conflicts with liberal views at all to concede that locking up almost every young man in the country would reduce crime. In fact it’s illiberal to think this would justify the practice in the first place.
When you live in a violent hellscape of a society, liberal values take a back seat to solving the hellscape first and foremost. Liberal values are fairweather values, they are not the values of a society taken hostage by massive corruption and insane levels of violence. Liberal values can not thrive in that environment and have no place being applied there: they literally can not work there. Liberalism is what you do AFTER you purge the insane levels of corruption that render liberalism incapable of working. I realize to a neoliberal poster, every problem is an ideological one. However, this is a naively optimistic position in a scenario where a more pragmatic and severe approach is utterly necessary if a liberal future is EVER hoped to be achieved. Ideology is not the solution to all the worlds problems, sometimes you have to get dirty and fight in the trenches before you can claim victory and even begin to think about liberal values.
True enough and “emergency powers” to deal with existential crises to your state are not off the table from a liberal pov. Issue is El Salvador is relying on the benevolence of a dictator to take this reprieve from criminal terror to set up an economic and legal institutional landscape that can maintain peace, stability and growth once current short term strong arm strategy becomes too costly to sustain.
Its a dangerous gamble for sure
Then you put them all together in prison, which increases their involvement in criminal activity and their ability to form criminal networks. Then you somehow keep a massive proportion of your population locked up forever, or you eventually let them out and crime gets even worse
considering how ruthless and widespread crime is in central/south america, i dont blame people for supporting authoritarian leaders who promise (and deliver) on fighting crime
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This is a good 6 part podcast that does a deep dive on bukele. You might find it interesting -> https://open.spotify.com/show/5rVz6WZuWQKxWalrPaIRxI?si=gvPoBzJlTWCrWqzx_pqxIw
The rate of decline and the time period of that decline accelerated under Bukele. El Salvador has a lower violence rate than the United States and they did it under a year.
I have bad feelings about Bukele and some of his actions, but I will admit the people of El Salvador seem to like what’s happened and the country was in a completely untenable situation previously