Caudillo:
- A leader.
- A military dictator, especially one ruling in Spain, Portugal or Latin America. [Wiktionary]
That’s a new one on me. I get the impression it’s used to express some disdain. Noted in “The American Caudillo,” Andrew Sullivan, The Weekly Dish:
And anyone peacefully protesting this grotesque cooptation of a military parade worthy of Putin or Xi? They will be met with a “very heavy force,” just as they would be in Beijing or Moscow. Yes, that’s what free speech now amounts to in this man’s America. Write an op-ed criticizing a foreign country’s mass infanticide, and you will be deported pronto. Protest this caudillo’s trashing of every American value since the Founding, and his masked thugs will arrest you, deport you, or injure you. Be a US Senator and ask a cabinet secretary some questions at a press conference, and guards will wrestle you to the ground and cuff you. This administration has now praised ICE and Secret Service violence against elected Democratic officials more than once.
