The Cult of the Strongman Latinos Can’t Shake (When It Suits Us)

The recent U.S. election outcome offers a stark leadership lesson: if you can manufacture emotional urgency in people and do so with a divisive, dark, brazen, violent, macho, and strongman persona, you might just secure the presidency of the most powerful country on earth. What else couldn’t you achieve?

The day after the election, I witnessed an incident in New York. A Black worker angrily targeted a fellow worker of likely Arab (and perhaps Muslim) origin, shouting that all immigrants to the U.S. were garbage, a plague and that they should leave immediately. He boasted that this was why he’d voted for Trump and had never been prouder. Fortunately, the Arab man quietly removed himself from the situation.

But this episode is emblematic of the society that is now, in many circles, validated by Trump’s return.

Of course, this isn’t the scenario that many Americans, now a minority concentrated in the country’s major urban centers, had hoped for. In places like San Francisco, San Diego, Las Vegas, Seattle, Houston, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, New York, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Atlanta, Richmond, Denver, Sacramento, Dover, and Honolulu, where Trump was roundly defeated, these communities house the well-educated, the skilled, the people who contribute directly and indirectly to about 70% of the nation’s output.

On the other hand, many of those who voted for Trump—typically less educated individuals who see the world in binary “left vs. right” terms, who believe the U.S. is in recession (it isn’t, quite the opposite), and who imagine that immigrants want to “steal their pets”—the solution to every problem is division, violence, polarization, and undemocratic behavior. Among this demographic, there are of course a few opportunists. Elon Musk is a prime example: he stands to gain from Trump’s tariffs on China, particularly on electric vehicles. Musk's wealth reportedly grew by $1 trillion the day after the election. Others in this group are simply gambling on calculated risk, looking to profit in the short term. They may not like Trump, but they certainly don’t mind him.

But it’s Latino men who truly propelled Trump to victory. This group, inclined towards conservatism, religion, and often entrenched machismo, seems, like so much of Latin America’s turbulent political history shows us, to suffer from a peculiar reverence for the “caudillo,” or the strongman. In a meticulously calculated play on political psychology, Trump crafted his campaign persona as the strong man, the “big guy,” violent, divisive, flaunting “us versus them.” All the classic traits of a caudillo. This created such a powerful emotional connection that, even when Trump referred to Puerto Ricans as “garbage” at a rally, the Latin vote didn’t falter.

In a personal study, I developed a strongman-detection model and analyzed 20 speeches from various leaders worldwide. Trump’s recent campaign speeches ranked alarmingly close to notorious strongmen like Hugo Chávez, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un:

Latino men who voted for Trump cited the economy as their reason. Ironically, the U.S. economy is currently the world's envy, achieving a soft landing with inflation under control, stable GDP, and low unemployment—a feat few nations could boast. However, under the caudillo mentality, once the emotional connection is forged, facts become irrelevant.

In general, many people, particularly Latinos, seem willing to tolerate strongman regimes, autocracies, and totalitarian tendencies when there’s a short-term benefit. Figures like Bukele, Bolsonaro, Milei, Morales, Maduro, Correa, Chávez, AMLO—the list of strongmen crosses political and cultural boundaries, illustrating our willingness to embrace “the big man.” Many of these same Latinos who once criticized Hugo Chávez for allegedly paying people to attend rallies or vote, now laud Elon Musk for giving money to those who registered to vote “if they supported Republicans.” While others condemned various Latin American leaders for manipulating their countries’ democratic structures to allow reelection, these same people cheer on Bukele as he pushes for another term in El Salvador. The reason is plain: short-term gain.

The problem, however, comes in the long term—when it’s already too late. When you vote for a candidate, you’re not just endorsing their best idea; you’re accepting the full weight of their ideology and all future consequences. The world is not merely “left versus right”; it can also be authoritarianism versus democracy, conservatism versus liberalism. Politicians play up the left-right divide because it distracts the public from the real threat of authoritarianism. To make progress in a society, we don’t need identical ideas, but we do need mutual respect. The real leadership crisis today isn’t ideological diversity; it’s the resurgence of strongman allure. Politicians must not be allowed to paint the world in black and white.

Looking beyond the short-term veil, the future being painted for the U.S. is one in which uneducated groups overpower the educated, violence and division overtake unity and consensus, falsehoods, and fear-mongering replace truth and justice, strongman tactics eclipse democracy, male privilege dominates women’s rights, and white male supremacy rises over minority rights—all of this propelled, in part, by Latino strongman worship.

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Niccolò Machiavelli said it well over 490 years ago: “Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.”

The U.S. Constitution may limit Trump to a final term. But it does not prevent his ideas, his tactics, and his methods from spreading. In the end, societies are defined by what they tolerate—and what they vote for.