Us vs Them

Plus El Salvador's historic election, beyond the 'right vs left' paradigm and the trouble with 'Capital D' Democracy...

(Nayib Bukele president of El Salvador speaks alongside his wife Gabriela Rodriguez de Bukele after the presidential election on February 04, 2024 in San Salvador. Source: Getty Images)

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine

~ R.E.M, It’s The End of the World as we Know It (1987)

Joel Bowman, with today’s Note From the End of the World...

This past Sunday afternoon, in the tiny Central American nation of El Salvador, the country’s larger than life president drove with his wife to the voting booth to cast his ballot. Trolling his detractors on the ride, the 42yr-old blared R.E.M.’s 1987 hit, It’s The End of the World as We Know It from his car speakers. 

And boy, did he feel fine...

A few hours later, the resoundingly re-elected President Nayib Bukele claimed an unambiguous victory, having secured by then between 85 and 90% of the popular vote. (The official count saw him win more than 8 times the next two party’s votes... combined.)

Addressing the joyous crowd, gathered peacefully in the nation’s once-murderous capital of San Salvador, Bukele beamed to his fellow countrymen: 

“Today, El Salvador has broken all the records of all the democracies in the world. Since democracies have existed, never has a project won with the quantity of votes that we have won today.”

Given that democracy is supposedly the favorite plaything of so many would-be do-gooders in the west these days, the casual reader might be forgiven for thinking that this would be a day of celebration, a fête for the stewards of the globalists’ much-ballyhooed “rules-based world order.” 

After all, the results were entirely uncontroversial (in that they had been forecast by popular polling months in advance). Likewise, the electoral process itself was unblemished and uncontested, to the extent that even the US Department of State issued a statement, saying it “commends the work of electoral observers and looks forward to working with President-elect Bukele and Vice President-elect Felix Ulloa.”

Heads We Win, Tails You Lose

And yet, to read the mainstream coverage of the event, this loud and crystal clear expression of the “will of the people” was nothing short of a gigantic lurch toward rabid, goose-stepping authoritarianism. In R.E.M terms, it was more “Everybody Hurts” than “Shiny Happy People.”

Here’s a smattering of farce from the chattering class: 

‘World’s Coolest Dictator’ Nayib Bukele Claims El Salvador Presidential Reelection ~ whined Time Magazine

Bukele expands his power in El Salvador: The era of the single party and the single leader is born ~ moaned El Pais 

Democracy is losing support in the world and in the US. Just look at El Salvador ~ cried the Miami Herald

For the avoidance of doubt, your editor does not claim any particular affinity for the “will of the majority.” Not when such a collective will, when politically enacted, constitutes what H.L. Mencken described as an “advanced auction on stolen goods.” 

Rarely have we met a queue we wanted to join or a fadish notion we were desperate to share. To each his own, we say. Truth is not subject to opinion, as justice does not necessarily reside in the collectivist will of the mob. Our own opinion is enough for us, thanks very much, and we’re happy to claim and defend the right to hold it against any opposition, however numerous their legions, however righteous their cause, anywhere, anytime.

As such, we are not here to defend “democracy,” nor to claim any special insight into the heart and mind of President Bukele. Whether he be saint or sinner is not given us to know.

Rather, we wish simply to call out the hordes of hypocrites who worship publicly and conspicuously at the altar of ‘Capital D’ Democracy (“It’s on the ballot! Whaaa!!”)... but who readily abandon their civic deity the moment results don’t go their whiny little way. 

On which note...

Wah-Wah WaPa

To the shock and awe of none, the Washington Post was reliably on hand to offer some dismissive rebukes after the weekend’s landslide election. “El Salvador is the site of a startling — and, to many liberals, disturbing — political project.” 

WaPo’s large-font columnist (miseducated at establishment messaging factory, Yale University), went on to lament:

Bukele’s success in El Salvador reflects a set of politics that transcends his small Central American nation. In both developing and developed countries, democracies are facing historic tests. Polls show mounting public apathy from voters, particularly young people, and deepening disenchantment with the ideals of liberal democracy itself. 

For a newspaper that carries the (apparently empty) slogan “democracy dies in darkness” on its masthead, the outlet sure has trouble concealing its snide contempt for the “will of the people,” even those who do hail from embattled, gang-infested developing nations.

And yet, if our enlightened correspondent were to descend his Ivory Tower and visit one of these sh!thole countries – El Salvador, say... or Argentina – he might discover a keen and escalating enthusiasm for politics, particularly among younger voters. 

Not unlike Argentina’s Javier Milei, who swept the youth vote with his unapologetic appeal to “liberty, damnit!,” El Salvador’s president – known as “the Millennial President” – leveraged social media to attract and engage a whole cohort of “teen-n-twenties” voters, the overwhelming majority of whom cast their ballots in his favor, for better or worse. 

The Kids Are Alright

It was on one such social media platform, X, that Nayib Bukele crowned himself “The Coolest Dictator in the World,” an obvious troll of the comedically-impaired progressives populating mainstream newsrooms up the hill...but a humorous rally cry for those kids who “got the joke.” 

(The jibe came in direct response to the Biden Administration’s 2021 admonition that a national court ruling allowing Bukele to run for a second term, under emergency powers, “undermines democracy”...even as an overwhelming majority of El Salvador’s population supported the decision, as evidenced in polling at the time and the fact that they just re-elected the guy... in something called a “democratic election,” by a margin of 9-to-1.) 

For his part, Bukele has since rebranded as “Philosopher King,” another quip likely to fall on the deaf ears of the overeducated.

All of which leaves one to wonder: Does the youth vote only “count” if it abides by that hoary adage, “He who is not a progressive in youth has no heart; he who is not a conservative in age has no brain”? 

The establishment likes to see demographics vote “in their lanes,” in predictable and, therefore, controllable mob formations, which can be easily corralled into twin abattoir chutes leading to the same bloody outcome. 

But as voters from Argentina to The Netherlands to El Salvador are beginning to demonstrate, it’s no longer simply about Right vs Left...

...but Us vs Them. 

Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...

Cheers,

Joel Bowman