Trump has joined Stalinists and Nazis who both referred to their own people as "criminals" and "terrorists," as both Trump and Bukele did at the White House, to justify their authoritarian abuse and escape from the law.

"It is that anti-constitutional escapism that enables abuse," "State terror involves not just the malignant development of state organs of oppression, such as masked men in black vans, but also the withdrawal of the state from its role as a guardian of law. What aspiring tyrants present as 'strength,' the ability to terrorize innocent people, rests on what might be seen as a more fundamental weakness, which is the withdrawal of the state from the principle of the rule of law. When we have law, we are all stronger; when we lack law, everyone is weaker except for the very few who can direct the coercive power of the state against the rest of us."

Be afraid, be very afraid.