Crime Is The Enemy of Freedom: Lessons From Bukele

I recently had the immense privilege of speaking about my new book, From Mar-a-Lago to Mars: President Trump’s Great American Comeback, with a man I have admired since childhood. That man is America’s Mayor, Mr. Rudy Giuliani. Before Giuliani came to represent strength in the face of unspeakable tragedy on 9/11, he was best known as one of the two men who cleaned up New York City. Before he was President, Donald Trump helped restore New York’s sheen, optimism, and beauty. Before 9/11, Mayor Giuliani was best known for tackling the city’s out-of-control crime.

In both cases, the good guys won because they were tough. This is the only way to fight crime.

In my book, I reference one of the most important quotes in American history, a statement that has as much to do with fighting crime as it does with preserving liberty—two concepts that go hand in hand. President Madison said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

This quote is as important as it is misunderstood. It means that for a nation to enjoy the exceptional freedoms given to us by God and protected by our Constitution, its people must retain a baseline morality that prevents them from descending into the law of the jungle. We cannot be free unless we have the self-discipline to behave in a civilized manner.

At the root of all crime is evil behavior. This is why Mayor Giuliani drained the swamp of degeneracy, vagrancy, vandalism, and gangsterism—symptoms of the evil behavior that fueled the city’s violent crime epidemic.

Former Congressman, Dr. Ron Paul, a tireless champion of liberty, has always maintained that a free nation cannot be a nation of low impulse control violence. According to Dr. Paul, “The Founders warned that a free society depends on a virtuous and moral people. The current crisis reflects that their concerns were justified.” Listen to Dr. Paul, and listen not to those who claim that fighting crime is incompatible with an absolute commitment to liberty.

Today’s generation has a new hero in the war against criminality and the evil behavior it represents: our great friend and ally, President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador.

El Salvador has a population about two million smaller than New York City’s.

When President Bukele assumed power in 2019, he inherited a broken nation. Murderers ruled the streets, and gangsters paralyzed businesses. Freedom, as a result, was nonexistent.

A physically beautiful country had become a place no one wanted to visit. But President Bukele had a solution. He recognized that the criminals in his land had declared war on his people. This is not an exaggeration. The levels of death and terror inflicted on Salvadorans by evil criminals rivaled the carnage of military conflicts.

President Bukele refused to continue the policies of his predecessors, who appeased and ultimately surrendered to the criminal element. Instead, he declared war on the criminals, using the full force of the state.

After declaring a state of emergency in 2022, over 85,000 criminals were removed from the streets.

The results speak for themselves. El Salvador is now one of the safest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Businesses have reopened, the free market thrives, foreign investment is skyrocketing, American tourists visit regularly, and the President’s approval rating is around 90%.

President Bukele proved that modern leftism has become the ideology of the criminal element. This is because modern leftism blames crime on everything but the evil behavior of the criminal. Leftists point to circumstance, personal hardship, or supposed collective misfortune—anything to shift responsibility from those clearly accountable for their criminal acts.

But the situation among leftists is even worse than it used to be. Observing that crime frightens law-abiding citizens, leftists exploit this fear to curtail the liberties of the innocent under the false pretense that doing so will reduce crime. As the predecessors of both President Bukele and Mayor Giuliani proved, this approach never works.

The left’s goal is not to fight crime but to control the population of good and honest people by forcing them to surrender their God-given rights to a godless state.

To accomplish this, the left propagates the myth that the free speech of a law-abiding person causes another’s criminal behavior. If you think this is an exaggeration, consider that this year, Australian politician Chris Minns, from my birth nation, stated he opposes free speech because he supports multiculturalism. Well, I’ve got news for you, Chris: if any part of a nation’s culture blames free speech for violent acts, there is something wrong with that culture.

One of the moral features implicit in President Madison’s statement is impulse control—the difference between an adult and a toddler. A toddler may resort to violence when things don’t go their way. But through moral education, starting in the home, a child learns that reason, speech, logic, and prayer are the answers when things go wrong. Violence is not.

There is a place for adults who have not learned these valuable lessons, and that place is called jail.

If all crimes are crimes of opportunity, why is it that in many East Asian countries, you can leave your wallet on a public bench, and it will remain there until you retrieve it? The answer is a public morality that suppresses the base impulses leading to evil behavior.

The United States was once the world leader in such civic morality, and I am convinced that under President Trump, it can once again be that shining city on a hill. However, this cannot happen until leftist governors and mayors are voted out of office at the earliest opportunity.

Elections matter—just ask the people of El Salvador, who love their President, as we love ours!

Nick Adams is a Presidential appointee, social media influencer, and best-selling author of the upcoming book: “From Mar a Lago to Mars: President Trump’s Great American Comeback”.