Argentina has a colorful, libertarian president and the left already hates him: but Argentines who have fled the economic disaster that has gripped their country are now considering returning.
Even though his hair is real, some call Javier Milei “el loco” (crazy) or “the wig”. He played in a Rolling Stones cover band in his youth and still looks the part; he makes mutton chops, wears leather jackets and attends campaign rallies with a chainsaw; symbol of plans to cut spending and taxes and eliminate ten of Argentina’s eighteen ministries. .
The lifelong bachelor, the son of a businessman and a housewife, is a tantric sex guru and advocate of group sex, but calls sex education in schools a Marxist plot to destroy the family and wants Argentina’s 2020 referendum on legalization to be redone. abortion. He is a climate change and vaccine skeptic who has won praise from Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who say he will make Argentina great again. It also inspired organized protests by Taylor Swift fans, who called her compatriot Pope Francis a “shameful communist” and worse. Milei has four 200-pound English Mastiffs, whose children she names Four-Paws, and they are all named after her favorite right-wing economists. They were copied from beloved dog Conan, who died in the US in 2017, but Conan claims he continues to give him advice through a medium.
Milei, a political newcomer who was elected to Congress in 2021, memorably described Argentina’s government as “a pedophile in a kindergarten where children are chained and bathed in Vaseline.” He’s not entirely wrong. Left-wing Peronists have governed Argentina for 16 of the last 20 years, and the New York Times even acknowledged in its hit Milei that their left-wing policies “plunged the country from boom to bust.”
Inflation is at 143 percent, the peso has lost 90 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar on the black market, and 40 percent of the country is below the poverty line. For a proud people, this is a national shame. at the end of 19This In the 19th century, Argentina was so prosperous that the phrase “as rich as an Argentine” was in fashion, but now Argentina ranks 126th in the World Bank’s ease of doing business index and 94th in Transparency International’s corruption perception index, behind developing countries such as Burkina Faso and Belarus. is ranked. and Benin.
In April 2020, one US dollar bought 80 pesos on the semi-official “dollar blue” black market exchange. Argentina imposed two of the longest and strictest lockdowns in the world during the Pandemic, and Milei was an outspoken opponent of these measures. The economy collapsed and could not recover. When I visited in August 2022, my tour guide Celeste told us that we had arrived at a “historic period of hyperinflation.” We dropped 330 pesos to $1 and Argentina was cheap for us. But inflation has worsened since then, and one US dollar now buys more than 900 pesos. (Note: The foreign exchange market is closed today as it is a national holiday, so we will have to wait until Tuesday to see how the elections will affect the market.)
Like many other young Argentinians we met, Celeste left the country during the crisis to obtain citizenship in Italy. She says there are more than 200 young Argentinians in her small town of 2,000 in southern Italy, all of whom are trying to gain EU citizenship based on their Italian origins. With the economy in shambles, it should come as no surprise that an outsider like Milei could defeat Sergio Massa, the economy minister who presided over left-wing policies that led to runaway inflation, 56 percent to 44 percent. An Argentine friend, Patricia, told me in an email that the country needed change. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a crazy option or not,” she said. “We are tired of inflation, injustice, corruption, welfare.”
Milei said he wants to abandon the peso in favor of the US dollar, close the central bank, relax gun laws, cut spending, cut taxes, cut regulations, as well as closing ministries including the ministry of women, gender and diversity. , introduce a school choice voucher system, and privatize the state media, the national oil industry, and others. “Today we are putting an end to the idea that the state is a spoils to be shared between politicians and their cronies,” he said.
Milei also took a much softer stance on the Falkland Islands than most Argentine politicians. He defends the view that the islands belong to Argentina, but that the islanders, who mostly want to remain British, should have a say in their future. During his campaign he praised Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister who launched the British operation to retake the Falkland Islands from Argentine invaders in 1982, as one of the “greatest leaders in human history”. This led to predictable criticism from his opponents and the “war veterans” movement, but did not cause him to lose the election.
Also predictably, the liberal Western media have none of his freedom agenda. The BBC disparaged him as a “far-right” “radical” akin to Trump and Brazil’s former leader Jair Bolsonaro, although neither are libertarians. The New York Times also called his victory a victory for the “far right” and accused him of being a conspiracy theorist and Trump wannabe.
Milei shouldn’t be fired that easily, but she has her work cut out for her. The Freedom Advances party holds only seven of 72 seats in the Argentine Senate and 38 of 257 seats in the House of Representatives. He is clearly an eccentric, but in a country of 46 million people he received more than half the vote; Therefore, it is misleading to label Milei as a “far-right” extremist when the same news organizations do not identify anyone, not even actual communists. , far left.
While intellectuals in Europe and North America disapprove of this situation, most Argentines are hopeful. Celeste says that after Milei won, there was joy in the Whatsapp group of Argentine exiles in Italy and Spain. He says many of these young exiles hope to return to their beloved country if Milei and his libertarian, free-market policies turn the country’s course.
“If Argentina becomes more stable and we get more honors, I think most people will come back because they didn’t really want to leave Argentina in the first place,” he said.
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