The press conference of President Donald Trump with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele was, deep down, an authoritarian political action.
This was clearer in his discussion about Kilmar Abrego García, a man that Trump’s administration evaluated and then Erronerouse sent (by his own admission) to the infamous Cecot prison of El Salvador. The two men were derogatory of the court order required by their return, offering an obviously absurd argument that Neith The country could facilitate the return of Abrego García to the United States.
“This Rhetorical Game the Administration is playing, where pretends it lacks the power to ask for Abrego Garcia to Be return While Bukele Pretends He doesn’tn’tn’tn’tn W Supreme for the Supreme for the Supreme for the Supreme for the Supreme for the Supreme for The Supreme for the Supreme Court for the Supreme Court for the Supreme for the Supreme Court for the Supreme for the Supreme Court for the Supreme Court for the Supreme Court. Adam Serwer del Atlántico explains.
This is even for the course for Bukele. Thought chosen by the presidency of El Salvador, since then it is governed as A dictator out and out WHO Civil liberties indefinitely suspendedViolently violated Salvadoran Constitutions are limited in consecutive termsand Sent the military to the saving legislature To force them to vote in the way I wanted. Bukele doesn’t care what Salvadoran courts or constitution give; He has enough power so he can simply do what he hears.
Trump’s second period record suggests that he aspires to that child of power. But he doesn’t have it. It is operating in a system where the law and political opposition create real limitations, although incomplete. If you simply ignore those limitations, you could face a collapse in the support of the public, social elites and perhaps even a critical mass of Republicans. As much as Trump chickens is irregular, he is governing a country with a much more functional democracy, at least for now.
It is possible to convert a seemingly healthy democracy into an authoritarian state. I only look at Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, perhaps the only authoritarian chosen that American law admires more than Bukele. But where Bukele is violent and vicious, Orbán is soft and subtle, systematically manipulating the law destroying democracy while keeping his basic sheet intact.
Trump, at different times and in different ways, has become both styles. His treatment of Abrego García and other migrants is pure Bukele; His effort to fold American universities to his will is pure orbán. But the styles are in direct tension from each other: one with power exhibitions, the other operating in the legal shadows to hide their true nature. String together, they could end up children sufficiently without law to seize force or intelligent enough to avoid a massive reaction.
This unstable mixture, in summary, could have the involuntary consistency of inflaming US resistance to Trump’s policies. If that happens, then Trump’s strategic description can be one of the things that allows US democracy to survive his presidency.
Trump, between Bukele and Orbán
Bukele is a strong text man. It owes its success and popularity to an aggressive reaction to a social crisis specifically, the problem of the gangs of El Salvador and the rate of very high murder. Oye powers Claimed several years ago to address this emergencyLike sending alleged gang members to Cecot Gulag without due process, they have been maintained long after the problem of gang violence decreased. It appears in public with armed in fatigue, developing a quasi-fascist aesthetic designed to underline that it is a hard guy willing to do difficult things.
Orbán, on the contrary, the power won in the midst of the consequences of a financial crisis and a corruption scandal in 2010. Hello, they do not have the mandate of destroying civil freedoms or Hungarian democracy; His work, at least in the minds of voters, was to clean it.
Their methods to consolidate power were invisible by design, or announced as good government reforms instead of power captures. He did not judge dissident journalists, but manipulated financing currents to make his work impossible. He did not simply ignore the Hungarian Constitution, but subtle modified it that made it more and more difficult for the opposition to compete in fair terms. Heer is a suit, not a uniform.
Each approach made sense in their own country. When Bukele Tok Power in 2019, El Salvador was in the middle of a social collapse induced by crime. Carrying out the authoritarian force was exactly what Bukele needed to sell the Salvadoran public. Hungary, on the contrary, was, even relatively recent, a communist dictatorship, and nobody wanted to return. Then, Orbán needed to pretend to play with democratic rules and insist that he was the best champion of democracy.
Before Trump’s second term, one of my greatest fears was that it would be Orbán’s assault on democracy around 2010. Many of his main allies, such as the president of the Heritage Kevin Roberts Foundation, had openly suggested copying. And in fact, some Trump 2 movements of the firm, such as cutting federal subsidies to universities, left Orbán’s tactics directly.
But much of Trump’s second mandate has been more in the style of Bukele than he expected. It is not just that he sent alleged gang members to a saving prison; Is that he did it in such a striking and obviously illegal way. The naked statement that the United States government has the power to get migrants out of the street and send them abroad without due process and no hope of recovery is too rude to the Hungarian regime. There is no remotely defensible argument of why it is compatible with the principles of a free society.
This dance occurs, in part, because Trump has Neith Orbán or Bekele’s central strengths.
Orbán enjoys a two -thirds majority in Parliament, thanks to his ability to stack the electoral deck in his favor. This supermay allows you to make any hey law: Hey actually has the votes to amend the Constitution at will. Orbán’s greatest threat is the public who wakes up to the true nature of his regime; Therefore, it ensures that the most dangerous movements are hidden under the layers of opaque bureaucracy and legality.
Trump, on the contrary, faces a formal legal number or checks. The close majority of the Congress of the Republican Party, the Independent Judicial Power and the Federal System put real limitations in the power of Trump. Trying to go to Orbán complete in the midst of these limitations would require a degree of patience and subtlety that Trump does not seem to possess.
Bukele, meanwhile, enjoys important public support because Or your authoritarian policy. Many Salvadorans prove their “hard -hand” (iron fist) policies with the destruction of gangs that were terrifying their communities. For these voters, democratic freedoms felt like luxuries that were worth sacrificing in the name of order and stability.
Instinctive, Trump would like to govern like this. He has openly admired the supposed force of dictators, praising violent repressions Like the massacre of the Tiananmen square ORPÍN The extrajudicial execution of drug traffickers in the Philippines.
But, despite the non -sensitive statements of the administration, there is no emergency in the United States similar to El Salvador in 2022, when the country had the highest murder rate in the Americas. In the absence of an acute social crisis, Trump cannot simply affirm the powers he claims in the case of Abrego García and hopes that people will rise on board.
The final result, then, is that the Trump administration is trying to implement two different strategies for the authoritarianization of the United States: both subtle Hungarian legalism and brutal brutal ones with Salvadoran civil repressions. However, both depend on mutual exclusive theories on how to gain public support, one that hides authoritarianism under a democratic sheet, the other that requires striking manifestations of strong men.
It is possible that this mixture ends up working for Trump. But I suspect that it will engender a broader public reaction before what he thinks.
