In the past five years, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has become Latin America’s most celebrated authoritarian. He has won plaudits—including from U.S. President Donald Trump—for reducing gang violence and transforming one of the world’s most dangerous countries into arguably one of its safest. But Bukele has presided over the erosion of El Salvador’s democracy and the creation of a police state. He rules through a relentless and perpetual state of emergency, the régimen de excepción, that has suspended constitutional protections for more than three years. And there is no end in sight. Bukele and his party have monopolized control over the legislative and judicial branches, which, through constitutional reform, have opened the door for him to serve as president in perpetuity.