Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "How the World’s Most Dangerous Country Solved Murder" video.

  1. I think it's fair to point out, if people still didn't notice this, that this is exactly how most totalitarian dictatorships in the world had their start. It's not that I don't understand that, given how bad the situation was, and how corrupt previous governments in El Salvador were, the approval rate of Bukele would be this high. But I think it's very important for people to understand that a whole ton of totalitarian dictatorships throughout the world and throughout history started in a very similar way. A country in shambles, a new figure with lots of promises to break the mold takes over, popularity rises insanely, tough on crime and minorities, the streets are peaceful again, institutions are eroded, press is persecuted, liberties are taken away, all in the name of "fixing" the nation. Did you know that Nazi Germany early history is exactly like that? So much that it's pretty creepy. This is exactly why you have a saying that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It comes exactly from this phenomena that is observed through history when it comes to dictatorships. See, if you read history and understand the parallels in the mechanisms described in this video, you start understanding why this could just be the calm before the actual storm. We keep always hoping it isn't, but there are just too many parallels to ignore. Particularly when it comes to stuff like taking over congress, dissolving justice, changing constitution to allow for a takeover of power for an indefinite period, cult of personality part, hard on crime stance, human rights violations that are overlooked because of potential benefits it has for the nation as a whole, dismissal of international criticism... the list goes on. I'll give some suggestions for people to read into. Try looking into the early history of the Nazi party in Germany. Perhaps the rise of Bolivarism in Venezuela. The history of the military dictatorship taking power in Brazil. Perhaps something about the first period of military dictatorship in Myanmar. The history of the post Korean war that divided between North and South, and how the North became the way it is today. There are many more all throughout the world. I won't criticize Bukele, nor want to make an alarmist call for Salvadorans, but I really think people should understand the basic mechanisms on how totalitarian dictatorships comes to be, so that you can be prepared for whatever comes next. There are several steps in the trajectory of democracies becoming more and more autocratic, then turning into dictatorships to then become totalitarian dictatorships that can be observed. Is there no hope for El Salvador then? Yes there is. After all, lots of strong democracies emerged from totalitarian dictatorships. But the focus should never be on a single popular president or figure, and it should never be on a single political party. What makes a strong democracy are strong democratic institutions. If you don't see this happening in a country that had a (much needed) political shock, that's when you know it's backsliding into a dictatorship. Strong democratic institutions are what prevents a country from being taken over by a dictatorship. It's a decisive factor whether El Salvador has chances of coming out of this better or worse. It's not only about Bukele one day dying or being removed from power, it's about the imbalance of power itself. A person cannot maintain god-like powers over the lives of so many people because a person's life is an unstable thing. And the thing is, the more powerful someone gets, the more isolated from the realities of the people they become. Priorities shift, becomes distorted, and for the people it becomes arbitrary too. I'll give you one example not mentioned in the video that everyone already knows about - the whole Bitcoin fracas. Had Bukele's stance on Bitcoin really taken over and really spread out like he wanted it to be, can you see that large portions of El Salvador's population would have lost on average half the value of their entire savings? That's more or less how much Bitcoin devalued since he started talking about it back in 2021, up to today. But Bukele continues to double down on this idea, because he's already in a bubble... it doesn't matter much for him the fluctuation of crypto because he doesn't depend on that for his daily life. Now say someone got totally into his advice, traded everything he or she had into crypto, saw the whole thing crash, got out as soon as he or she saw that it wasn't worth it, and now is living day by day, perhaps thinking of giving out to crime gangs, and then got arrested in the crackdown.... how many people are needed to have stories like those for a president to be considered not worth his position? I guess it's an unanswerable question. But it's worth considering.
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