Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s Millennial president, is quickly becoming the darling of some American conservatives. First, it was for his embrace of Bitcoin as currency in his country. Now, it’s for his tough stance on gang crime. American conservatives began showering praise on Bukele after he posted a series of videos showing imprisoned gang members being transferred to a maximum-security prison. But Bukele isn’t a conservative. He’s a tyrant in the making. Those praising him now will soon wish they hadn’t supported him (or hope the rest of us forget they did).
In 2019, Nayib Bukele made history as the first third-party candidate to win a presidential election in El Salvador since the 1992 end of the civil war between communist and right-wing militias. Some free-market enthusiasts became his first cheerleaders as he jumped on the cryptocurrency bandwagon and exempted crypto gains from taxation. He not only made Bitcoin legal-tender currency in the country, but also forced businesses to take payments in Bitcoin. In addition, he invested a significant share of the country’s wealth in Bitcoin, a move that almost bankrupted the country as cryptocurrency prices tumbled.
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