Interesting that you should mention Bukele and El Savador, because for most of the 1st world Asian countries, they did require some authoritarianism to bring them into the modern world. For example, Taiwan didn't really become a democracy until the 80s. But good on them, they were able to successfully transition to a democratic society without bloodshed. Sometimes it seems like you might need a strongman to bring order out of chaos, and the question is whether that power can be relinquished peacefully