I've been in ES for nine months now and at least 9 out of 10 Salvadorans are happy to very happy with what Bukele has done, to the extent that they want him to stay on and continue for another term. Some are more critical or reserved. Almost all of those I talk to also think the new-found safety, freedom and happiness will continue after Bukele does step down one day, because the people have had a taste of it and won't accept reversion to before. I'm somewhat less sure.

A few of my own concerns are:

In the meantime, the country feels more safe than the US at the moment and the economy and investment (including foreign) seem to be benefitting. The price of land and real estate have been going up (and are often overpriced) due to some wanting to cash out while foreigners want to buy. Am starting to see resentment toward people coming and buying at these prices, like what happens everywhere during gentrification. Other people are investing and developing businesses and real estate for the longer term.

Increased Bitcoin adoption will take time, education and understanding. Adoption happens one-by-one over time. Bitcoin decreed top-down by the government made it uncool and people are naturally suspicious of initiatives like that. The often poor image people have of bitcoin's proponents (annoying / nerds / arrogant / incels / weird) does not help. It's trendy for wannabe cool locals, American tourists, and instagrammers to say bitcoin is lame or sketchy, and it's widely seen as a flop.

I've found that reframing Bitcoin as a rebellion -- against the US dollar being a tool of oppression against the people in this dollarized region of the world -- to work. People nod their heads at the dollar being empire/war/blood money, and then at bitcoin as a way to opt out of that and fight the system and the higher prices / inflation exported from the US / the FED. Combined with explaining the halving cycles and where we are now, as basic greed is the initial way that people onboard to it. You want to get people started with it during the bear market, not the bull market.

We will see.

He seems popular in his country. I can't speak much to his "dictatorial tendencies", but sometimes you need a strongman to root out deep corruption and criminality. The real litmus test is whether the strongman is willing to relinquish power to create a more liberal society after the corruption is rooted out.

Jury is out. He is certainly a promoter. He certainly has a strongman political tendency but I find it hard to judge his actions considering the condition the nation was in when he took over. It's easy to pass judgement from western democracies on the third world and how they should be more like us but the reality is liberal democratic tactics probably aren't going to turn things around. I am not trying to be an apologist just because he is pro bitcoin, just trying to consider that cleaning up an absolute mess might be messy.

I defer to the three people I know from El Salvador who used to work for me, they all love him. They live in Canada, they have family back home, they have no incentive to lie or feel pressed to speak ill of him if they were concerned about the direction the country was going, so I take them at their word.

Last year I wrote this thread on SN: #41563 "Are Bitcoiners too uncritical of El Salvador and Nayib Bukele?"

In the mean time my opinion hasn't changed much. I think Bitcoiners have pink hearth shaped eyes because he endorsed Bitcoin and give a blind eye to all the dictator shit. One exception: his crackdown on gangs seems to be genuinely a great success and not just propaganda. So credit were credit is due.

He's a bad guy who's good for bitcoin. Bitcoin doesn't give a shit about his dictatorial tendencies.

He is doing greatly for good, but probably – from my perspective – not in the right way. I mean, bitcoin is here to divide money and state as two separated things, and seeing bitcoin "legal" in ES it's a bit of a contradiction. However, benefits the country is accumulating are considerable, as per the massive marketing/political campaign planned.

✅ Bitcoin legal tender ✅ Volcano Bitcoin Mining 🔳 Volcano bond - WIP 🔳 Bitcoin city - WIP

Regardless of many aspects (HR, popularity, tourism, crime, bitcoin, etc) the single one aspect that will determine ES and Bukele's fate is the country's economic model. If he achieves setting up a successful free economic model (increasing investment, inflows of capital, domestic capital investment) it will not matter if he stays in power for 2 or 5 or 15 years. From what I have heard there are a lot of economic incentives to invest there. That is a good sign. And as a thumb indicator I would look to the middle class size. If number goes up, that is good. However I wonder if the statistical information is public and reliable.

My favourite dictator...

He is Good, Smart! Yes it ll happen definitely in future, If not El Salvador some where in the world.

He does better for his country that the WEF counterparts.

Whoever the media, the gangs, and the NGO's like HRF despise, is a hero.

Mr nice guy and Mr nice person,good luck for him

Not Salvatorian, but I would love a Bukele in the country of my birth.

He is a heroe, for sure it would be wrong if he stayed more than 3 terms but the fact is el salvador picked right when they voted for him, let me explain.

The previous gangs were all mixed with the goverment, he was an outsider but unlike trump which was stupid and in the end a bourgeois asshole which didn't do anything in his presidency other than lowering the taxes for the rich, didn't handle the pandemic like bukele did and reversed some necessary climate laws.

Not only were the previous goverments old dinosaurs debating old conflicts like communism vs capitalism but they were ingrained with the gangs, the fmln were relics from the soviet times and the side that supported the right were supported with guns and money from the cia, bukele cleaned all that shit and if for some reason the cia destroys his goverment he will be persecuted by the old corrupted politicians.

bourgeois liberals are scared bukele is a man of action, liberals like to make everything bureacratic and slow but for people that read the sovereign individual they know efficiency is what matters in the modern world and if we get a system like for example laws were made by ai this would replace normal democracy or mix it, bukele is a technologist he knows how important technology is and how fast technology changes society so el salvador knows they can't be voting for boomers that don't understand how copy & paste works in modern computers, the tech iliteracy from old politicians hurt society a bit too much and bukele knows this which is the reason he is inviting anyone to come to el salvador.

In the end all the economys from the first world are reaching economic stagnation while el salvador is a small young country with the hope of a great future so yeah bukele is an amazing leader that cannot easily be copied.