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Original article: No era metáfora ni hipérbole, era demagogia: Kast convierte en figura retórica una promesa migratoria incumplida

The promise was straightforward, striking, and highly effective for electoral purposes: to expel 300,000 undocumented migrants «on the first day». It did not sound like a metaphor. It was not presented as hyperbole. It functioned as a signal of authority, a call for order, and a political contract with an electorate driven by fear and anger. However, now from La Moneda, José Kast is trying to shift this phrase into the realm of rhetorical figures, as if a presidential promise could be retroactively downgraded to a literary device.

The President initially stated it one way, then attempted to clarify. «Some say: ‘It’s been 60 days and you said on the first day you would expel 300,000 migrants.’ It’s a metaphor. If someone believed we could expel 300,000 in one day, they misunderstood the message,» Kast claimed. The following day, he revised his explanation: «Perhaps the term was hyperbole, not metaphor.» The discussion then shifted from the fulfillment of a campaign promise to alleged linguistic precision.

However, the problem isn’t merely linguistic. It’s political. Because Kast’s immigration promise was not a spur-of-the-moment comment or a random phrase lost in a speech. It formed the core of his campaign, one of the strongest signals of his tough-on-crime agenda and one of the messages aimed at conveying that his government would swiftly and authoritatively resolve a complex crisis. The promise appeared in debates, speeches, and was even accompanied by a countdown to his arrival at La Moneda.

Demagoguery Begins When a Slogan Is Sold as a Solution

To put it in simple terms: a metaphor is saying one thing to represent another; a hyperbole is exaggerating for effect. But a campaign promise is something different. A campaign promise seeks to build trust, support, and expectations for fulfillment. When a candidate says they will do something if they gain power, they are not writing poetry; they are asking for votes.

This is why Kast’s defense raises a larger issue than just his phrase. If he knew that expelling 300,000 undocumented migrants «on the first day» was an exaggeration, then he campaigned with a slogan that his own voters could understand as a literal commitment. And if he did not know, the problem is equally serious: he turned an extremely complex public policy into a high-yield electoral slogan.

This is where demagoguery becomes apparent—not as a superficial insult but as a political category. Demagoguery involves offering simple, immediate, and emotionally effective solutions to problems that require institutional support, resources, administrative processes, international coordination, and respect for fundamental rights. In this case, the slogan was clear: tough action, mass expulsion, and immediate effects. The subsequent explanation is different: it was not literal; it was a rhetorical figure.

In other words, what worked as a commitment during the campaign now appears as an expressive resource in government. What previously helped order fear now serves to manage failure to deliver.

You Don’t Expel 300,000 People with a Phrase

Irregular migration is a real issue, but precisely for that reason, it cannot be resolved with slogans. To expel a person, simply announcing it during a campaign or raising a call for authority is insufficient. You must identify them, validate their migration status, process administrative or judicial procedures, coordinate with the Police Investigations, allocate resources, arrange flights, establish consular ties, and ensure that the receiving country accepts the return.

That is the point the Kast campaign compressed until it became nearly invisible. The phrase «on the first day» erased that entire chain of obstacles, conveying a simple idea: all it took was political will. But governing is not the same as campaigning. The migration reality involves borders, consulates, documentation, budgets, diplomatic agreements, and minimum standards of due process.

El País reported in April that the Kast government was seeking to restore consular relations with Venezuela to facilitate expulsions, because without that coordination, verifying identities and issuing safe conducts becomes difficult. The same publication noted that there were over 44,000 migrants with expulsion orders and that the budgetary capacity for returns was limited, far from any notion of immediate mass expulsion.

Thus, the inevitable question arises: if all that was necessary, why was the promise presented as though it only depended on reaching La Moneda?

Kast’s Immigration Promise and the Fine Print of Tough Policies

Kast’s immigration promise was effective because it did not only address migration. It spoke of order, authority, punishment, and control. In a country plagued by insecurity, the figure of the undocumented migrant was used to encapsulate a much broader discomfort. This political operation is not new: turning a complex problem into an identifiable face, the internal enemy, has always been a powerful tool for hard-right factions.

But that effectiveness comes at a cost. When promising to expel hundreds of thousands of people «on the first day», an expectation is set that must be met. If that fulfillment does not occur, simply changing dictionaries is not enough. It is not sufficient to say it was not a metaphor but hyperbole. Nor is it enough to request that the audience understand the message was not to be taken literally.

Because during the campaign, it was indeed useful for the promise to be taken seriously. It was useful for it to sound urgent. It was useful for it to appear executable. It was useful for the electorate to believe there was a tough, quick, and decisive plan.

The trap lies here: literal to gain votes, figurative to govern.

When the Explanation Aggravates the Problem

Kast’s correction does not resolve the controversy; it exacerbates it. By stating that the phrase was a metaphor or a hyperbole, the President not only downplays a promise but also raises doubts about the seriousness of his own programmatic offer. Was it a plan? Was it a slogan? Was it a calculated exaggeration? Was it a method to electorally mobilize fear?

From La Moneda, Kast tries to frame the issue as a misunderstanding. But the problem is not that the public has «misunderstood the message.» The issue is that the message was constructed to be understood precisely as a signal of immediate determination. If a phrase is used to gain political support, it cannot later be treated as a literary ornament without consequences.

Especially when it comes from the President of the Republic. In a democracy, presidential words matter. Promises matter. Campaigns matter. Trust from the public erodes when what was presented as a government commitment is later reinterpreted as a rhetorical device.

It Was Not a Trope: It Was a Power Offer

Kast did not make a mistake in a language class. He constructed a tough, simple, and emotionally effective promise on a sensitive topic; established it as a signal of authority; and then, from power, shifted it toward the realm of rhetorical figures. But a presidential promise cannot change its status after the election.

If it was hyperbole, then it was an exaggeration used to produce a political effect. If it was metaphor, then it was never a literal commitment. And if it was never a literal commitment, the brutal question that remains is: how many voters believed it was?

The unfulfilled promise does not disappear simply because it is now being referred to differently. It remains as a reminder of a campaign that offered immediate solutions for problems that demand something far more serious than hard hand, effect-driven phrases, and semantic corrections.

The crux of the matter is not whether Kast meant to say metaphor or hyperbole; that is an academic debate. The point is that a democracy cannot function if presidential promises are literal to gain votes but figurative when it comes time to fulfill them.

La entrada Kast Attempts to Reframe Unfulfilled Immigration Promise as Rhetorical Device Rather Than Commitment se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.