Agustín Laje once again burst into the public debate with a detailed review of what, according to him, constitute the great advances of the “cultural battle” under the government of Javier Milei. In a post accompanied by a long thread, the liberal intellectual responded to those who maintain that the president is not fighting that fight. For Laje, this sector represents only “5% of the right” and acts out of “ignorance or bad faith.”
The writer stated that Milei’s victory marked a turning point and that, for the first time, the cultural agenda of the right managed to establish itself with social force. In his review, Laje divides the progress by levels. Among the examples that stand out in his view are the closure of INADI, the review of Public TV content and the end of the state guideline for media. In that same axis he includes one of the most viral points: “The business of ‘artists’ who live off the State in exchange for political support is cut off,” he wrote, in direct reference to the cultural subsidy system.
Another of the fragments that resonated the most is his reading on education and the formation of meaning. Laje celebrates the creation of mechanisms to report “indoctrination” in schools and the audit of public universities, which he accuses of being plagued by “ideological use.” His list also mentions the resignification of the former Kirchner Cultural Center as “Palacio Libertad” and the curtailment of “ideologized” investigations in CONICET.
According to Laje, all these changes respond to the project that he has been promoting for more than a decade: installing conservative values, questioning feminism and recovering what he considers “Western tradition.” The symbolic turn—end of inclusive language, restitution of Columbus Day, LGBT flags removed from public organizations—completes the reading of a country that, according to him, is leaving behind the “progressive narrative.”
For the writer, what has happened since December 2023 shows that the right is no longer marginal: “Argentine youth has turned strongly to the right,” he stated. His conclusion is blunt: “Whoever denies that the cultural battle is taking place can only do so out of ignorance or bad faith.” And he concludes: all these changes, he emphasizes, happened “in less than two years.”
