Power Has Become a Brand
From Public Policy to Content: Why the Way Power Is Narrated Is Becoming as Influential as Power Itself.
- Carolina Gaviria Salazarjournalist and communication strategist
There are political images that no longer require explanation. Prisoners with shaved heads and tattooed torsos, perfectly organized rows, hooded guards, aerial shots, dramatic music—and the president walking slowly in front of the camera.
One may agree or disagree with Nayib Bukele. But there is something difficult to dispute: few Latin American political figures have managed to so effectively transform the exercise of power into a recognizable image. And perhaps that is one of the reasons why Bukele now appears in political conversations in countries where he is not even campaigning. His personal brand, as well as his policies, of course, resonate in many places, but so do his images, the aesthetic of the iron fist, his language of confrontation, the idea of the leader who not only governs but also performs his own role before an audience.
A recent analysis by The New Yorker called this phenomenon Bukele's "content machine": a content apparatus capable of converting government actions into highly shareable material and projecting his influence over campaigns and leadership in other Latin American countries. The report describes how images, videos, symbols, influencers, and an ongoing narrative around security have helped transform the Salvadoran president into a regional reference.
So, in addition to asking, "Why does Bukele communicate so well?" one begins to wonder, "At what point does a president cease to be merely a ruler and start to become a political brand?"
For political marketing expert William Rodríguez Ortegon, the answer is uncomfortably simple: in reality, politicians have always been brands.
"A ruler, whether at the national or local level, will always be a brand, at least from the start of the campaign that leads them to office," he explains. "Their name and proposals ultimately become objects of preference or choice by the electorate."
The comparison may sound overly commercial, but the literature on political communication has been studying something similar for decades. British political scientist John Street, for example, developed the concept of the "celebrity politician" to explain how politicians began to use resources traditionally associated with popular culture and celebrity to build representation and connection with citizens. The political figure no longer competes only with other candidates; they also compete for attention.
Research on campaigns has also shown that candidates do not strategically build only their positions on specific issues; they also construct the image they want the electorate to remember. James Druckman, Lawrence Jacobs, and Eric Ostermeier analyzed precisely how campaigns can "activate" both political issues and image attributes—competence, strength, personality—according to context and public opinion.
But Bukele appears to have taken this logic to another scale, because throughout his political trajectory he has not merely sold a proposal; he has transcended to sell a recognizable experience of power, achieving that today, security has images, authority has a staging, and the State has a protagonist.
That, according to the expert consulted, is one of the central elements of his success: the coherence between his narrative and what a large part of the citizenry perceives as results.
"If there were no success, or relative success, in his public policies, it would not be possible to communicate successfully," says William. "Bukele has been consistent with his proposals and public policies, and that is something the electorate and the citizenry reward."
Here lies, probably, one of the most interesting keys to the phenomenon. A political brand can attract attention, generate conversation, achieve millions of views, but like any brand, it needs to deliver on a promise.
In Bukele's case, that promise has been extraordinarily simple to understand: order in the face of fear. And that clarity has had enormous political value. His figure has become a reference outside El Salvador because it offers something that many campaigns fail to condense: a visually straightforward narrative about a complex problem: there are criminals, chaos, and an enemy. And there is a leader who promises to restore control.
The result is a formula that is easily recognizable and, above all, easily exportable.
It is no coincidence that in the region, leaderships are beginning to emerge that prefer to imitate some of his most visible codes: mega-prisons, uniforms, operations turned into videos, a language of war on crime, and leaders with an increasingly defined visual identity, rather than the entire Salvadoran institutional architecture.
The recent analysis by The New Yorker, for example, notes how the so-called "Bukele model" has influenced debates and campaigns beyond El Salvador and cites a particularly revealing statistic: at the beginning of 2025, 46% of Chileans surveyed expressed that they would like their country's next president to govern like Bukele.
That figure helps illustrate something.
Bukele is no longer just a Salvadoran politician. He is a political reference that others can cite, admire, adapt, or oppose. And that is precisely what a powerful brand does: it manages to transcend its original context.
Donald Trump turned politics into a permanent ecosystem of persona, spectacle, conflict, and attention. Jair Bolsonaro built a strongly recognizable political identity around confrontation, conservatism, and direct communication. Javier Milei transformed symbols, aesthetics, and even his nickname—El León—into part of an immediate political identity. What is interesting is that these brands can share codes without sharing exactly the same national history.
A leader can copy an aesthetic without copying a policy, can copy a language without copying a government program, can copy a prison, a song, a gesture, or an image… And there emerges one of the most fascinating risks of politics turned into content: that the most easily exportable part is precisely the surface.
The expert interviewed for this column, however, warns that reducing the phenomenon to a matter of image would be a mistake.
"We are not talking only about an issue of image or brand. It has a strongly ideological content, because in these models, the adversary becomes a public enemy," he notes. Indeed, all this public fanfare manages to blend emotions (fear, rage, or hatred) with promises of prosperity, development, and protection.
His observation invites us to look toward another perspective, where the strongest political brands are not only deciding who we are, but also pointing out against whom we are.
But this thesis is grounded in the idea that every story needs an antagonist, every hero needs a conflict, and every "us" needs a "them." And in contemporary politics, that logic has an evident advantage: it works very well on platforms designed to reward emotion, simplification, and attention.
That is why this column does not seek to analyze whether Bukele handles political communication well or poorly; the underlying question is what kind of politics we are rewarding when the ability to narrate power becomes almost as important as the ability to exercise it.
Because this president's regional influence no longer depends solely on what he has done in El Salvador. It also depends on the way he managed to make visible what he did, understanding, before many others, that in the age of TikTok, X, YouTube, and WhatsApp, power no longer just needs to be exercised. It needs to be seen.
And perhaps that is the true lesson—or warning—of his success. Because before, parties built candidates. Then, candidates built brands. And now, some political brands are so powerful that they can cross borders without ever appearing on the ballot.
Sources:
1. The New Yorker — “Nayib Bukele’s Content Machine Is Reshaping Latin America” (August 18, 2026).
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/nayib-bukeles-content-machine-is-reshaping-latin-america
2. Frontiers in Political Science — study published in August 2026 on Bukele’s communication on X (2019–2025). https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/political-science/articles/10.3389/fpos.2026.1850023/full
3. Ignacio Siles et al. — “Populism, Religion, and Social Media in Central America”.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612211032884
4. John Street — “Celebrity Politicians: Popular Culture and Political Representation”
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/19401612211032884
One may agree or disagree with Nayib Bukele. But there is something difficult to dispute: few Latin American political figures have managed to so effectively transform the exercise of power into a recognizable image. And perhaps that is one of the reasons why Bukele now appears in political conversations in countries where he is not even campaigning. His personal brand, as well as his policies, of course, resonate in many places, but so do his images, the aesthetic of the iron fist, his language of confrontation, the idea of the leader who not only governs but also performs his own role before an audience.
A recent analysis by The New Yorker called this phenomenon Bukele's "content machine": a content apparatus capable of converting government actions into highly shareable material and projecting his influence over campaigns and leadership in other Latin American countries. The report describes how images, videos, symbols, influencers, and an ongoing narrative around security have helped transform the Salvadoran president into a regional reference.
So, in addition to asking, "Why does Bukele communicate so well?" one begins to wonder, "At what point does a president cease to be merely a ruler and start to become a political brand?"
For political marketing expert William Rodríguez Ortegon, the answer is uncomfortably simple: in reality, politicians have always been brands.
"A ruler, whether at the national or local level, will always be a brand, at least from the start of the campaign that leads them to office," he explains. "Their name and proposals ultimately become objects of preference or choice by the electorate."
The comparison may sound overly commercial, but the literature on political communication has been studying something similar for decades. British political scientist John Street, for example, developed the concept of the "celebrity politician" to explain how politicians began to use resources traditionally associated with popular culture and celebrity to build representation and connection with citizens. The political figure no longer competes only with other candidates; they also compete for attention.
Research on campaigns has also shown that candidates do not strategically build only their positions on specific issues; they also construct the image they want the electorate to remember. James Druckman, Lawrence Jacobs, and Eric Ostermeier analyzed precisely how campaigns can "activate" both political issues and image attributes—competence, strength, personality—according to context and public opinion.
But Bukele appears to have taken this logic to another scale, because throughout his political trajectory he has not merely sold a proposal; he has transcended to sell a recognizable experience of power, achieving that today, security has images, authority has a staging, and the State has a protagonist.
That, according to the expert consulted, is one of the central elements of his success: the coherence between his narrative and what a large part of the citizenry perceives as results.
"If there were no success, or relative success, in his public policies, it would not be possible to communicate successfully," says William. "Bukele has been consistent with his proposals and public policies, and that is something the electorate and the citizenry reward."
Here lies, probably, one of the most interesting keys to the phenomenon. A political brand can attract attention, generate conversation, achieve millions of views, but like any brand, it needs to deliver on a promise.
In Bukele's case, that promise has been extraordinarily simple to understand: order in the face of fear. And that clarity has had enormous political value. His figure has become a reference outside El Salvador because it offers something that many campaigns fail to condense: a visually straightforward narrative about a complex problem: there are criminals, chaos, and an enemy. And there is a leader who promises to restore control.
The result is a formula that is easily recognizable and, above all, easily exportable.
It is no coincidence that in the region, leaderships are beginning to emerge that prefer to imitate some of his most visible codes: mega-prisons, uniforms, operations turned into videos, a language of war on crime, and leaders with an increasingly defined visual identity, rather than the entire Salvadoran institutional architecture.
The recent analysis by The New Yorker, for example, notes how the so-called "Bukele model" has influenced debates and campaigns beyond El Salvador and cites a particularly revealing statistic: at the beginning of 2025, 46% of Chileans surveyed expressed that they would like their country's next president to govern like Bukele.
That figure helps illustrate something.
Bukele is no longer just a Salvadoran politician. He is a political reference that others can cite, admire, adapt, or oppose. And that is precisely what a powerful brand does: it manages to transcend its original context.
Donald Trump turned politics into a permanent ecosystem of persona, spectacle, conflict, and attention. Jair Bolsonaro built a strongly recognizable political identity around confrontation, conservatism, and direct communication. Javier Milei transformed symbols, aesthetics, and even his nickname—El León—into part of an immediate political identity. What is interesting is that these brands can share codes without sharing exactly the same national history.
A leader can copy an aesthetic without copying a policy, can copy a language without copying a government program, can copy a prison, a song, a gesture, or an image… And there emerges one of the most fascinating risks of politics turned into content: that the most easily exportable part is precisely the surface.
The expert interviewed for this column, however, warns that reducing the phenomenon to a matter of image would be a mistake.
"We are not talking only about an issue of image or brand. It has a strongly ideological content, because in these models, the adversary becomes a public enemy," he notes. Indeed, all this public fanfare manages to blend emotions (fear, rage, or hatred) with promises of prosperity, development, and protection.
His observation invites us to look toward another perspective, where the strongest political brands are not only deciding who we are, but also pointing out against whom we are.
But this thesis is grounded in the idea that every story needs an antagonist, every hero needs a conflict, and every "us" needs a "them." And in contemporary politics, that logic has an evident advantage: it works very well on platforms designed to reward emotion, simplification, and attention.
That is why this column does not seek to analyze whether Bukele handles political communication well or poorly; the underlying question is what kind of politics we are rewarding when the ability to narrate power becomes almost as important as the ability to exercise it.
Because this president's regional influence no longer depends solely on what he has done in El Salvador. It also depends on the way he managed to make visible what he did, understanding, before many others, that in the age of TikTok, X, YouTube, and WhatsApp, power no longer just needs to be exercised. It needs to be seen.
And perhaps that is the true lesson—or warning—of his success. Because before, parties built candidates. Then, candidates built brands. And now, some political brands are so powerful that they can cross borders without ever appearing on the ballot.
Sources:
1. The New Yorker — “Nayib Bukele’s Content Machine Is Reshaping Latin America” (August 18, 2026).
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/nayib-bukeles-content-machine-is-reshaping-latin-america
2. Frontiers in Political Science — study published in August 2026 on Bukele’s communication on X (2019–2025). https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/political-science/articles/10.3389/fpos.2026.1850023/full
3. Ignacio Siles et al. — “Populism, Religion, and Social Media in Central America”.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612211032884
4. John Street — “Celebrity Politicians: Popular Culture and Political Representation”
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/19401612211032884
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