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Remember when Donald Trump called for “one really violent day” to stop shoplifting and petty crimes (despite the fact crime has already dropped at a historic rate under the Biden administration)?
Trump’s controversial pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, could be a rubber stamp for the president-elect’s worst impulses, considering the former representative has been a proponent of political violence himself, touting El Salvador as a model for how governments can get their countries in order.
On the ReidOut Blog, I’ve been covering the Republican Party’s infatuation with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, the self-described “world’s coolest dictator” whose so-called gang crackdown has been widely decried by activist groups for its suspension of human rights, its targeting of children, its use of torture and its jailing of innocent people.
Gaetz was among Bukele’s loudest cheerleaders in Congress. In June, he attended the authoritarian leader’s second term inauguration alongside a bunch of other conservatives, including Donald Trump Jr. Gaetz also launched the congressional “El Salvador Caucus” earlier this year to — as he said — “vindicate the strong reforms that President Bukele has put into effect.” Pro-Salvadoran activists in the U.S. have accused the caucus of whitewashing Bukele’s abuses, a claim Gaetz has denied.
But Gaetz’s statements elsewhere tell another story. During his visit to a Salvadoran jail earlier this year, Gaetz claimed, “There’s a lot more discipline in this prison than we see in a lot of the prisons in the United States,” according to a CNN report. In a propaganda video that Bukele posted to his X account, Gaetz can be seen saying, “This is the solution” for El Salvador and, “We think the good ideas in El Salvador actually have legs and can go to other places and help other people be safe and secure and hopeful and prosperous.”
Americans would do well to understand that as a warning. If Matt Gaetz ultimately takes the helm of the Department of Justice as Trump’s attorney general, he will be in a prime position to facilitate one of Trump’s most disturbing vows: his threat to use state violence on those he deems an enemy.