a post-print leader, however obliquely or overtly kingly, can govern both effectively and with popular support only by working in two registers: the rational print one and the symbolic digital one. Perhaps the individual who rules most deliberately in this fashion is El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele. Depicted as a tyrant by Western liberals, reportedly popular with his own electorate, and self-described on X as “Philosopher King,” Bukele governs as a “right-wing progressive.” His approach combines strong enforcement of public order, concern for ordinary citizens, techno-optimist elitism, and indifference to proceduralism. Importantly, Bukele uses the internet as a source of legitimacy, publishing carefully crafted iconography, public announcements, and ferocious rebuttals of his critics alongside active engagement in digital discourse, all within the accessible register of “secondary orality.” In this regard, whether by instinct or by design, he mobilizes a memetic enchantment made possible by secondary orality: one that recalls the calculated pageantry of premodern monarchs, such as royal entries and triumphal processions.
The King and the Swarm - First Things 
First Things
The King and the Swarm - First Things
The printing press did not just change how people shared information. It changed the normative patterns of consciousness itself. After those change...
