The Importance of José Mujica's Legacy
In a world full of Donald Trumps, be a José Mujica.
This was an article idea I came up with over two months ago, before subsequently being really busy, forgetting about it, and then remembering it in July. So let’s rewind- pretend it’s May.
José Mujica, President of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015, died aged 89 on 13 May 2025. Mujica was renowned internationally for his nickname as the ‘world’s poorest president’, as he chose to remain living with his wife at their single-story home on their flower farm rather than the official presidential residence. He preferred driving his 1987 Volkswagen Beetle to work instead of riding in the presidential motorcade. Additionally, he donated most of his presidential salary to build housing for rural neglected towns across Uruguay. Rather than being mere virtue signaling, austerity was a core belief for Mujica. At the 2012 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, he declared “Hyperconsumerism is what is destroying the planet”. He truly seemed to believe that the rich needed to be able to get by on less, influencing his view that politicians should live like average citizens rather than members of a special elite class. Quoting Roman philosopher Seneca, he told the New York Times in 2013 that “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor”.
Mujica’s presidency was impactful outside of his personal beliefs, however. Mujica achieved a series of progressive reforms, from reducing poverty and attracting a surge of foreign investment to legalizing abortion and same-sex marriage. Under Mujica, Uruguay became the first country in the world to legalize recreational marijuana. He also oversaw the successful resettlement of war refugees from Afghanistan, avoided corruption scandals, and put Uruguay on the map for global politics, with The Economist naming Uruguay its first-ever ‘country of the year’.
Mujica was 74 years old when elected in 2009. But he had a storied past, starting with membership in the National Liberation Movement [a left-wing urban guerrilla movement] in the 1960s. The National Liberation Movement, inspired by Cuba’s Che Guevara and often referred to as the Tupamaros, robbed supermarkets to redistribute food to the poor [Robin Hood-style] and kidnapped American hostages to fight against Uruguay’s gradual creeping towards military dictatorship after years of domestic economic crisis [not so Robin Hood-style]. In 1970, Mujica was shot six times in a police shootout, arrested, and was later tortured after a failed jailbreak attempt. In 1973, while in prison, a military coup plunged Uruguay into military dictatorship. Upon reflection while imprisoned, Mujica concluded that his rebel group was doing more harm than good, as the political instability they contributed to helped enable the military coup to occur. Mujica spent his 14 years in prison [10 of which was in solitary confinement] educating himself before being released in 1985 with the return to civilian government. As a former guerrilla militant, Mujica proved much of Uruguayan society wrong by trading in his arms for a more conventional center-left political coalition, eventually becoming Uruguay’s first former Tupamaro to be elected to Parliament in 1994. Then, before his presidential term, Mujica served as Minister of Agriculture, making a name for himself among voters by reducing the cost of a beef rib so working class Uruguayans could afford higher-quality cuts of meat.
In his older age, Mujica became disillusioned with more radical and violent political ideologies, instead championing social democracy and nonviolence while distrusting extreme positions. He stood out when compared to other leftist Latin American leaders- he was more moderate than Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, he did not try to ‘refound’ his country like Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, nor did he try to rewrite the rules like Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum [regarding her constitutional reform to elect judges]. Mujica was however criticized for failing to reform Uruguay’s educational system, and he disappointed his own supporters by refusing to put Uruguay’s former dictators [his former jailers] on trial, claiming that “[j]ustice has the stink of vengeance”. After his presidency, Mujica rejoined the Senate for 3 more years before stepping down in 2018, aged 83. In one of his final interviews, in 2024, Mujica claimed “The problem is that the world is run by old people [...] who forget what they were like when they were young”.
The main point of the above discussion was to introduce José Mujica, a successful and inspirational president whom I would argue many more people around the world should be aware of. But then, barely a week after Mujica’s death, the Trump Administration accepted a luxury Boeing 747 jet from Qatar to use as a future Air Force One, with the intention to later donate it to his presidential library for Trump’s personal use after his term ends.
Such a development immediately made me think of the warnings Mujica had espoused regarding democracy, corruption, and the dangers of excessive consumerism. Trump has brusquely swept aside questions regarding the ethics and legality of accepting such an expensive gift from a foreign nation. Trump’s new aircraft, which has been described as a ‘palace in the sky’, arguably violates the Emoluments Clause in Article I of the US Constitution, which aims to prevent corruption by barring federal officials from accepting gifts, payments, or titles from foreign states without congressional consent. Critics have further pointed out that the plane will need to be overhauled [and thoroughly searched to check for Qatari bugs] to be suitable as Air Force One, which will take years and cost over one billion taxpayer dollars. Rather than saving money, as Trump has claimed, accepting this plane actually wastes federal funds- especially when considering the government already has two fully functional Air Force One aircraft.
Much of the time, making the right decision is the harder choice to make. The world is broadly heading in a more chaotic, multipolar, autocratic, and illiberal direction. Recent developments like the cancelling of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show following his criticism of Paramount’s bogus settlement to appease the President, or the unprecedented success of Japanese hard-right populist party Sanseitō, are not encouraging, and there is only more in store in the months and years to come. In a time of such drastic and overwhelming political shifts away from traditional democratic norms, it is easy to forget about rational liberal values like being able to disagree with each other in a free society, equality between individuals under the law, and not keeping or purchasing too much more than we need. People like Donald Trump are becoming more common across the globe and gaining access to previously unattainable levels of power, so it is important to remember: in a world full of Donald Trumps, be a José Mujica.
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