It’s true: Kirchner was excoriated in the press for a joke about Chinese accents that never would have made it past an adviser. Hugo Chávez once tweeted about a particularly excellent meal (Translation: “Apologies if some of you haven’t eaten lunch!”). Maduro’s capitalization is so consistently bizarre that he undoubtedly authors his own tweets. But this loose-cannon communication style is evidently more of an asset than a liability, as none of these leaders have handed the reins over to a slick PR team (at least not one making a bit of difference).

The same is true, of course, of Trump. Though the jury’s still out on whether Trump personally types his tweets, his bombast and vitriol are certainly not official communications in 140 characters. (“.@WSJ is bad at math. The good news is, nobody cares what they say in their editorials anymore, especially me!”) They feel like the work of a single, outrageous human being. Silvia Viñas, a journalist in Latin America and the producer of the Radio Ambulante episode, says, “He has this strong personality and such a strong brand—like no one else that has come before, like Hugo Chávez. They have this crowd of people behind them, and the opposition just wonders: How are people behind this man?”