President Nayib Bukele in El Salvador declares martial law and arrests tens of thousands of gang members.\u00a0 In Argentina President Javier Milei is taking \u201ca chain saw\u201d to the bloated federal bureaucracy both to reduce the budget deficit and inflation and to scale back the over-regulation of life in his country.<\/p>\n
Why do I see these actions as significant?\u00a0 Because both of these countries are poster children for the abuses that their present leaders are trying to address.<\/p>\n
El Salvador has been struggling with violence for many decades.\u00a0 After a thirteen-year civil war gangs ran wild over the countryside and the murder rate was astronomically high.\u00a0 Bukele has cut the murder rate by at least 50%.\u00a0 As draconian as the method he used to accomplish this clean-up was, the people support his results.<\/p>\n
In Argentina rampant hyperinflation has been going on for decades.\u00a0 Milei ran on the promise that he would fix the economy.\u00a0 And the people of Argentina elected him because at this point no one else has spoken the truth about why their country which has so much potential is an economic basket case.<\/p>\n
Latin America is supposed to be hopelessly corrupt and unfixable.\u00a0 Well, maybe things can change.\u00a0 When the basket cases of the world start getting their acts together, maybe something is happening to the old world.\u00a0 Maybe there is even a little hope.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s certainly true that some of these actions aren\u2019t particularly legal.\u00a0 Bukele used martial law and unconstitutional powers to arrest the gangs.\u00a0 There is talk that many innocent men were swept up in this dragnet.\u00a0 Well, maybe what we are looking at is the rise of the strongman.\u00a0 Could this lead to dictatorship?\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 But when democracy fails you spectacularly you have to try something.\u00a0 You go to Plan B.<\/p>\n
And what does this tell me about the world at large and the United States in particular?\u00a0 It may mean that results are beginning to outweigh lofty ideals and good intentions in the minds of the people.\u00a0 After all that is sort of how Donald Trump and Brexit got their victories.\u00a0 People want results and they want the truth.\u00a0 Both of these seem to be in very short supply from the politicians and bureaucrats that rule in the Western democracies.\u00a0 Now, the United States isn\u2019t as chaotically lawless as El Salvador was nor as economically mismanaged as Argentina.\u00a0 But we\u2019re headed in those directions at a brisk clip.\u00a0 Maybe a sea change is in the cards.<\/p>\n
And maybe it won\u2019t be that long.\u00a0 2024 will be an important election.\u00a0 If Trump gets elected there\u2019s still a small chance, he can purge the bureaucracy of its deep state cronies in order to restore control over the government to the duly elected officials.\u00a0 But if Kamala Harris is installed in the White House, then we can say definitively that United States is no longer a functional republic but rather an oligarchic junta that cares almost nothing for the welfare of the people.<\/p>\n
If Harris is running this country, even as a puppet of the oligarchy, I assume the country will suffer a catastrophic decline with rampant violence and economic and fiscal instability at a level that will spark essentially a popular upheaval.\u00a0 And regardless of how it is clothed in constitutional language, there will be revolutionary changes in how things get done.<\/p>\n
Of course, I could be completely wrong and Kamala could turn out to be a wise and effective ruler who turns her term into a golden age.\u00a0 But after enough yellow school bus speeches and other brilliant clap-trap, I kind of doubt it.<\/p>\n
We seem to be speeding toward destiny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Nayib Bukele in El Salvador declares martial law and arrests tens of thousands of gang members.\u00a0 In Argentina President Javier Milei is taking \u201ca<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4194,4237,1066,4650],"class_list":["post-29998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-bukele","tag-javier-milei","tag-the-great-revolt","tag-upheaval"],"yoast_head":"\n