A year is a long time and a short time. A lot to outline the first draft of the characteristics of a president who is nothing like his predecessors, but very little to draw definitive conclusions. On December 10, 2023, Javier Milei assumed power with 56 percent of the votes obtained in the ballot, a shocking figure. But what is even more shocking is that twelve months later, in a context of permanent adjustment and stubborn recession, it continues to maintain those approval ratings: A study by the consulting firm Aresco de Fererico Aurelio, his favorite pollster, states that his positive image continues to be at that level, even a little higher, 57 points, after several months of downturns.
What do those who continue to support Milei value despite the deterioration in the quality of life and the relentless cuts in the economy, which caused, to cite an example, poverty to climb 10 points, to 55 percent, in the first months of management? The answer is not simple. Beyond the alarming effects of the chainsaw, such as the defunding of public education, the liquefaction of pensions, the high electricity and gas rates, the food that does not arrive in a timely manner to the soup kitchens or the officials who, as Minister Luis “Toto” Caputo, celebrate that the middle class has to sell their saved dollars to make ends meet, what the polls reward is the undoubted triumph of the libertarian leader in the fight against inflation, his main campaign promise, fulfilled for now. Aurelio and other consultants agree that if Milei continues to be popular it is because the electorate that voted for him has more patience with him than with a traditional politician – the “outsider” factor that comes to banish the caste.– and also because a large social majority considered this adjustment inevitable and believes they are seeing, after the hardest months, the light at the end of the tunnel. The timid green shoots in some economic indicators, the decline in country risk, the euphoria of the financial markets, the quiet dollar and the promise of reactivation around the corner, facing an election year, They make up the photo of the glass half full with which Milei hopes to consolidate his power in the midterm elections. Even a recovery in the level of unemployment and the poverty index, which the Government now placed at 50 points – that is, 5 less than the 10 it rose between December and March – suggests that the La Libertad Avanza experiment could succeed.
That’s as far as the economic aspect is concerned, that is, bread, which was little but which, through reactivation, now promises to return to the table. What there was, politically, was a lot of circus. The cultural battle of the libertarians to reestablish everything, the daily insults of the President – up to seven per day, according to a statistic recently released by Horacio Rodríguez Larreta – and the systematic attack on disoriented opponents, foreign leaders, journalists and even entertainment figures, accused of being “cockroaches”, “scourges”, “envelopes”, “rats”, “lefties” and a long etcetera, allowed the president maintain political centrality and also entertain public opinion in the hardest months of adjustment. Not even his vice president was saved. Not even the IMF, accused of harboring a communist among its ranks!
Why does Milei do what he does and, for example, wish bankruptcy on a publisher like Perfil, which does not submit to his media whip? It’s simple: he does it because he can. The antibodies of the democratic system seem sleepy in the face of a new leadership that turned politics and society upside down, and the serious thing is that one excess leads to another and that, when the limits of responsible coexistence have been broken, it seems difficult to return. to normal.
The most dangerous thing about Milei’s style is not the bread, which may or may not be scarce, but his violent circus, that threatens to contaminate the young democracy that we were able to achieve.
* NEWS Policy and General Information Editor. Author of “Martyrdom.” The secret history of the war between Alberto Fernández and Fabiola Yañez” (Planeta)
