Chapter 104: Firehose of Disinformation

392       is Catholic Andrew Lapin, “El Salvador’s President, Trump’s New Deportation Partner, Is a Pro-Israel Palestinian,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, April 17, 2025, www.jta.org/2025/04/17/global/el-salvadors-president-trumps-new-deportation-partner-has-a-strange-history-with-jews-and-israel. 

392       like most Salvadorans “According to a December 2022 survey by the University of Central America’s Institute of Public Opinion, 42.2 percent of the population identifies as Catholic, 36.6 percent as evangelical Christian, and 17 percent with no religious affiliation. Approximately 2.7 percent of the population identifies as “other,” which includes Anglicans, Jehovah’s Witnesses, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Muslims, Baha’is, Jews, Buddhists, and members of the International Society of Krishna Consciousness. Approximately 1.5 percent of the population identifies as agnostic or atheist. A small segment of the population adheres to Indigenous religious beliefs, with some mixing of these beliefs with Christianity and Islam. Muslim leaders estimate there are 18,000 Muslims.” U.S. Department of State, 2023 Report on International Religious Freedom: El Salvador, accessed September 30, 2025, www.state.gov/reports/2023-report-on-international-religious-freedom/el-salvador/. 

392       The Christian parents . . . immigrated to El Salvador from Palestine Lapin, “El Salvador’s President, Trump’s New Deportation Partner, Is a Pro-Israel Palestinian,” www.jta.org/2025/04/17/global/el-salvadors-president-trumps-new-deportation-partner-has-a-strange-history-with-jews-and-israel. 

392       arrived in 1921 Lapin, “El Salvador’s President, Trump’s New Deportation Partner, Is a Pro-Israel Palestinian,” www.jta.org/2025/04/17/global/el-salvadors-president-trumps-new-deportation-partner-has-a-strange-history-with-jews-and-israel. 

392       as an industrial chemist . . . a prominent businessman in San Salvador Jimmy Alvarado et al., “The Bukele Clan That Rules with Nayib,” El Faro, June 17, 2020, elfaro.net/en/202006/el_salvador/24542/The-Bukele-Clan-that-Rules-with-Nayib.htm. 

392       Olga and Armando had their firstborn son Alvarado et al., “The Bukele Clan That Rules with Nayib,” elfaro.net/en/202006/el_salvador/24542/The-Bukele-Clan-that-Rules-with-Nayib.htm. 

392       converted to Islam in adulthood . . . inaugural mosque in 1992 Lapin, “El Salvador’s President, Trump’s New Deportation Partner, Is a Pro-Israel Palestinian,” www.jta.org/2025/04/17/global/el-salvadors-president-trumps-new-deportation-partner-has-a-strange-history-with-jews-and-israel; Alvarado et al., “The Bukele Clan that Rules with Nayib,” elfaro.net/en/202006/el_salvador/24542/The-Bukele-Clan-that-Rules-with-Nayib.htm; and  Gabriel Labrador, “How Bukele Crafted a Best-Selling Political Brand,” El Faro, May 3, 2022, elfaro.net/en/202205/el_salvador/26155/How-Bukele-Crafted-a-Best-Selling-Political-Brand.htm.

392       “in God, in Jesus Christ” Nayib Bukele, 2015 interview, quoted in Raphael Ahren, “His Dad Was an Imam, His Wife Has Jewish Roots: Meet El Salvador’s New Leader,” Times of Israel, February 7, 2019, www.timesofisrael.com/his-dad-was-an-imam-his-wife-has-jewish-roots-meet-el-salvadors-new-leader/. 

392       as respecting all faiths . . . and his wife, Gabriela Ahren, “His Dad Was an Imam, His Wife Has Jewish Roots: Meet El Salvador’s New Leader,” www.timesofisrael.com/his-dad-was-an-imam-his-wife-has-jewish-roots-meet-el-salvadors-new-leader/. 

392       descends from Sephardic Jews  Ahren, “His Dad Was an Imam, His Wife Has Jewish Roots: Meet El Salvador’s New Leader,” www.timesofisrael.com/his-dad-was-an-imam-his-wife-has-jewish-roots-meet-el-salvadors-new-leader/. 

392       expelled . . . in the late fifteenth century James William Nelson Novoa, “Sephardic Diaspora,” in Oxford Bibliographies Online, last modified March 23, 2023, accessed September 30, 2025, www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195399301/obo-9780195399301-0509.xml. 

392       wanted to pursue law . . . didn’t suit him Vera Bergengruen, “How Nayib Bukele’s ‘Iron Fist’ Has Transformed El Salvador,” Time, August 29, 2024, time.com/7015598/nayib-bukeles-iron-fist-el-salvador/. 

392       pursued . . . advertising Bergengruen, “How Nayib Bukele’s ‘Iron Fist’ Has Transformed El Salvador,” time.com/7015598/nayib-bukeles-iron-fist-el-salvador/.   

392–393  “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule . . .” Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Cleveland, OH: The World Publishing Company, 1951), 474; and Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2021), 106. Find The Origins of Authoritarianism (search.worldcat.org/title/1450556499) and Strongmen(search.worldcat.org/title/1233267123) at a library near you.

393       Disinformation is . . . See “Disinformation,” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, accessed October 31, 2025, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disinformation. 

393       false information that is . . . See “Misinformation,” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, accessed October 31, 2025, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misinformation. 

393       also put forth by the U.S. government “Foreign Influence Operations and Disinformation,” Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, accessed via Wayback Machine, February 24, 2023 capture, web.archive.org/web/20230224204340/https://www.cisa.gov/topics/election-security/foreign-influence-operations-and-disinformation. 

393       “an anger state promotes the process of motivated reasoning . . .” Sijing Chen et al., “Spread of Misinformation on Social Media: What Contributes to It and How to Combat It,” Computers in Human Behavior 141 (April 2023), doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107643, 7.

393       When people lack . . . more susceptible to believing disinformation According to Chen et al., “Individuals’ low level of issue knowledge or scientific knowledge and cognitive ability would affect their susceptibility to misinformation on social media.” Chen et al., “Spread of Misinformation on Social Media: What Contributes to It and How to Combat It,” doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107643, 7.

393       generally have lower levels of skepticism . . . more vulnerable to disinformation Chen et al. found that older people had a “lower level of skepticism and higher level of acceptance of misinformation were observed among older people.” Chen et al., “Misinformation on Social Media: What Contributes to It and How to Combat It,” doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107643, 6.

393       with higher levels of critical thinking are less vulnerable . . . Chen et al. state “individuals with a high level of critical thinking are . . . less vulnerable to misinformation.” Chen et al., “Spread of Misinformation on Social Media: What Contributes to It and How to Combat It,” doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107643, 7.

393       attacks on education Sarah Schwartz and Eesha Pendharkar, “Here’s the Long List of Topics Republicans Want Banned from the Classroom,” Education Week, February 2, 2022, www.edweek.org/policy-politics/heres-the-long-list-of-topics-republicans-want-banned-from-the-classroom/2022/02; and “Right-Wing Attacks on Education and Student Expression,” American Oversight, September 29, 2023, americanoversight.org/investigation/right-wing-attacks-on-education-and-student-expression/. 

393       bans of books on . . . and transphobia See PEN America, “PEN America Index of School Book Bans—2024-2025,” accessed October 31, 2025, pen.org/book-bans/pen-america-index-of-school-book-bans-2024-2025/; and PEN America, “The Normalization of Book Banning: Banned in the USA, 2024–2025,” October 1, 2025, pen.org/report/the-normalization-of-book-banning/. 

393       “It was” . . . “the blunt instrument of reassuring ignorance . . .” Masha Gessen, Surviving Autocracy (New York: Riverhead Books, 2020), 31. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/1137807208.

393       1.5 million tweets . . . between April 2012 and April 2019 Jacob Davey and Julia Ebner, ‘The Great Replacement’: The Violent Consequences of Mainstreamed Extremism, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2019, www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/The-Great-Replacement-The-Violent-Consequences-of-Mainstreamed-Extremism-by-ISD.pdf, 5.

393       “steadily increased” Davey and Ebner, ‘The Great Replacement’: The Violent Consequences of Mainstreamed Extremism,www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/The-Great-Replacement-The-Violent-Consequences-of-Mainstreamed-Extremism-by-ISD.pdf,  5.

393       tripling between 2015 and 2018 Davey and Ebner, ‘The Great Replacement’: The Violent Consequences of Mainstreamed Extremism, www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/The-Great-Replacement-The-Violent-Consequences-of-Mainstreamed-Extremism-by-ISD.pdf, 24.