Ok folks realistically, how do democracies defend themselves against a billionaire Nazi with an army of bro-troll followers who has the US president in his pocket and is actively meddling with other countries affairs? Because this is starting to become Bond villain shit. Is the only answer an agent 007 with a special license?
On the one hand, Bukele is basically installing an authoritarian dictatorship here, so can we even trust these numbers? And the real big fish criminals are probably in cahoots with the regime. And of course people are getting eaten up by an inhumane, classist system that is producing a lost generation. So fuck all that.
On the other hand however, the previous situation was indeed unlivable. It was like living in the purge every day, with people living under the thumb of petty gangsters. And I’m really struggling to come up with an example of a nation coming back from this kind of collapse without some kind of Terror, in the Jacobin sense.
Like, sometimes a state of exception, a state of emergency is actually justified, and the state needs to re-establish the monopoly on violence. If Claudia Sheinbaum went Bukele against the Cartels in the north for example, would she really not be justified?