What the world’s budding autocrats are learning from El Salvador

It is a recipe to make strongmen salivate. , El Salvador’s president, has worked out how to chop away while keeping an approval rating of 80-90%. One ingredient is his mastery of social media. The main one is locking up huge numbers of young men.Since March last year, when Mr Bukele imposed a state of emergency, he has arrested more than 71,000 people, equivalent to 7% of male Salvadoreans aged 14-29. Anyone suspected of ties to a criminal gang can be thrown into a crowded jail—indefinitely. Little evidence is required: a suspicious tattoo or an anonymous accusation will suffice. Those detained will eventually have proper trials, the government insists, but so far they have had only cursory hearings, sometimes with hundreds of suspects appearing simultaneously before a judge. Mr Bukele glories in brutality, tweeting photos of suspects cuffed, half-naked and packed tighter than battery hens.