The precariat, the far right and the world’s coolest dictator

The self-described “world’s coolest dictator”, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, has an approval rating of 94%, supports life sentences for 12-year-olds, and has imprisoned over 3,000 children since introducing a national ‘state of emergency’ to combat criminal gangs four years ago.

“How reliable is this polling?” I asked openDemocracy’s Americas editor, Diana Cariboni, as she was translating and editing this week’s cover story. Pretty reliable, it seems: The young, Trump-supporting, crypto-pushing Bukele is immensely popular across Latin America, consistently polling higher than any other global leader, including among voters on the left. 

What is the progressive commentariat misdiagnosing about the popularity of authoritarians? Prof. Guy Standing, who coined the term the ‘precariat’ to refer to the new working class, has thoughts. “The precariat has been a class-in-the-making, not yet a class-for-itself,” Standing writes in a perceptive essay for this newsletter. “What this means, put crudely, is that those in it are more united about a politics of grievance, centred on chronic insecurity, than about a preferred politics of hope.” 

On that note, we are launching a new series where we’ve asked those at the frontlines of the UK’s economic and political crisis to tell us what they think Labour needs to do to right the listing ship of government: This week we have Nina Radulović, an ex-NHS worker and currently at MedAct, on what the new health secretary must do for the NHS, and Evie Breese and Dora-Olivia Vicol from the Workers’ Rights Centre, on what Labour needs to do on immigration.

Also in this issue, Paul Rogers on how Trump’s $3.6trn ‘Golden Dome’ missile shield risks starting a Cold War-esque nuclear race, Sian Norris on Reform’s inherent sexism, and Nandini Archer interviews climate campaigner Jessica Riches on radical and edgy new experiments in getting climate messages to cut through.

Thank you for reading the Weekly; if you like this newsletter, share it with a friend. If you love it, consider making a donation.

Aman Sethi, Editor-in-Chief

El Salvador’s president wants life sentences for 12 year olds

Pregnant women, babies and children are being swept up in the mass arrests ordered under Bukele’s ‘state of emergency’

openDemocracyEuan Wallace

Dear Labour, stop letting Farage set immigration agenda

As Andy Burnham eyes No 10, he must not try to out-Reform Reform, but take action on Labour’s economic renewal

openDemocracyEvie Breese

What new health secretary James Murray must do for the NHS

From evicting Palantir to tackling cause of spiralling waiting lists, here’s how Murray can shape future of the NHS

openDemocracyNina Radulović

The precariat election: Ignoring class and insecurity imperils Labour

A fractured ‘dangerous class’ has spoken. If Labour cannot offer them real security, the damage may be permanent

openDemocracyGuy Standing

Trump’s $3.6trn ‘Golden Dome’ won’t make US safer

Reminiscent of Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’, Trump’s plan revives Cold War fantasies – and risks a new nuclear race

openDemocracyPaul Rogers

OnlyFans meets the climate crisis: can shock tactics cut through?

Jessica Riches on porn parody, parasocial audiences and why climate campaigns need bigger risks

openDemocracyJessica Riches

Weekly Poll

This week in history

Emily Wilding Davison at the Epsom Derby — 4 June 1913 

On 4 June 1913, Emily Wilding Davison stepped onto the track at the Epsom Derby and was fatally struck by King George V's horse, Anmer. A fiercely dedicated militant of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), Davison had already endured multiple arrests and brutal force-feedings by the state. Her disruption of the Derby remains one of the most iconic and heavily debated moments of direct action in British history. The WSPU's uncompromising tactics including civil disobedience, hunger strikes and arson, were deeply controversial but undeniably forced the political establishment to reckon with women's enfranchisement.

Don’t forget the working-class women who made suffragette history

A century after some UK women won the vote, most of the suffragette stories we hear still focus on the elite. But this was a diverse movement.

openDemocracySian Norris

What we're reading

Going with the boys, Judith Mackrell

I can’t remember when I first read Mackrell’s group biography of six women war reporters working from the 1930s and 40s. I do know I re-read it every time I travel to cover Russia's full-scale invasion in Ukraine. The title comes from Martha Gellhorn cheerfully announcing she was “going with the boys” to report on the Spanish Civil War, the conflict that transformed her from a pacifist to an anti-fascist. Gellhorn is joined in the book by surrealist artist turned war photographer Lee Miller, Virginia Cowles (her memoir is worth a read), Claire Hollingworth, Sigrid Schultz and Helen Kirkpatrick. A fascinating history of journalism and war, what stands out is how women had to negotiate misogyny to get the story, and how as women they found stories their male peers could not reach. Mackrell is incisive on how war reporting impacted women like Gellhorn and Miller, and the trauma of witnessing the liberation of Dachau. I expect I’ll read it again next time I’m in Ukraine. 

Sian Norris, senior investigations reporter