How to build a police state | William Wheeler
Summary
The article compares El Salvador’s emergency rule under Nayib Bukele with President Donald Trump’s crackdowns in U.S. cities. The author argues that Bukele built authoritarian control through incremental steps and warns that Trump’s actions and his threat to declare a national emergency could follow a similar path.Key Facts
- El Salvador has been under a state of emergency since March 2022, after gangs killed 87 people over one weekend.
- The article says about 100,000 people, or roughly 2% of El Salvador’s adult population, have been jailed under the emergency measures.
- Local rights groups cited in the article estimate that at least half of those jailed are probably not gang members.
- Bukele met Trump at the White House on April 14, 2025, and described El Salvador as the safest country in the Western Hemisphere.
- The article says Bukele’s government suspended key civil liberties and that he bypassed constitutional term limits.
- The author compares Trump’s federal crackdowns on Democratic-leaning U.S. cities with tactics used under Bukele.
- Representative Jim McGovern told the Guardian that masked agents and opaque detention networks reminded him of accounts from families in El Salvador.
- The article says Trump has not ruled out declaring a national emergency as the midterm elections approach.
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