The playbook on tour

Noboa in Ecuador, Milei in Argentina, Honduran politicians flying to San Salvador. The model is being explicitly exported.

On 9 January 2024, Daniel Noboa declares an 'internal armed conflict' in Ecuador, naming twenty-two gangs as terrorist organizations and authorizing the armed forces to act against them — language and structure borrowed openly from the Salvadoran régimen. Javier Milei, sworn in five weeks earlier, makes parallel noises about taking back the streets, with public appearances framed in Bukelean terms. Honduran politicians visit San Salvador's CECOT mega-prison and pose for photographs in front of the cells. In five to ten years there will be a specific commander, a specific date, a specific prison wing, a specific list of names on a wall. That is not a prediction. That is just what this machine does after it runs for a while. The question of who gave the order is already being recorded; it is not yet being asked, because the constituency that would have to ask it is still the constituency that is cheering.