Argentina was hard hit by the pandemic that began in 2020. There was, in the Executive Branch, a center-left and Peronist government, faced internally by a power struggle between Vice President Cristina Kirchner and President Alberto Fernández.
At the beginning of the outbreak of COVID-19, Alberto Fernández had 70% approval, but later, this proportion reversed and he obtained 70% rejection. This represented an increase in disapproval against the Government which, at the time of the 2021 legislative elections, was capitalized by Milei and the mainstream right represented by Together for Change. The extreme right began to grow in public demonstrations and on social networks, expressing themselves against health restrictions.
Some far-right influencers – such as “El Presto”, “Álvaro Zicarelli”, “Dannan” and “Tipito Enojado” – began making videos against health measures that exploded on Instagram and YouTube. From this they formed a group under the name “Ministry of Hate”, with the aim of demanding “freedom” from health restrictions. Thus, they promoted a radical, irresponsible and individualistic version of freedom opposed to the idea of freedom associated with the notions of community and solidarity.
In this context, Milei, an economist who began to become known in the media, began to speak against what he called “the caste” and some of his followers called to reject health measures in a way that seemed to be anti-status quo and to promote a kind of rebellion.
In this aspect, Milei used to converge with the radicalized wing of the PRO party. In fact, Milei and Bullrich appeared together in a demonstration against health measures during the pandemic. This aspect shows how, in the analysis of the extreme right, it is important to consider the interactions between the radical right and the mainstream.
Both constitute, between cooperation and competition, a “right-wing ecosystem” that is important to analyze and understand. In 2021, the elections showed growth for La Libertad Avanza: it obtained 17% of the votes in Buenos Aires. That was the first election and it allowed him to enter the Chamber of Deputies with her ally, the right-wing, conservative and military-friendly Victoria Villarruel.
Another aspect to consider about Milei is “messianism” as a narcissistic and religious perception of himself as a savior candidate in the midst of a deep crisis. “I have witnessed three resurrections in three different ways”: this is what he told a friend. Apparently, too, he talks to his dead dog through his sister and political advisor, Karina Milei. Additionally, he has been spiritually guided by a rabbi of the Jewish community, Axel Wahnish. In this context, some visions of him as a being in connection with God and with aspects of the Jewish religion have appeared. He relates to the figure of Moses to talk about his path.
In Milei’s speech, Pharaoh, the Jewish people guided by Moses through the Red Sea, and rhetoric about the value of freedom are combined. In this situation, in which he has a messianic perception of himself, some people linked to far-right religious groups, such as the Society of Saint Pius X and Opus Dei, had approached him. This seems to be the case of Fernando Romero Moreno, a “Carlist” traditionalist intellectual close to Juan José Gómez Centurión of the NOS party, who has influenced Milei and maintains that there must be an alliance between conservative traditionalists and classical liberals. Romero Moreno calls to “work with the goal of restoring Christianity.” Pablo Stefanoni affirms that Milei “buys conspiratorial ideas in the global far-right market.” However, Milei also adopts ideas that are present in sectors linked to Victoria Villarruel, his candidate for vice president, who is linked to the conservative right-wing NOS party of the military man Gómez Centurión. There are two far-right intellectuals who also have a certain influence on La Libertad Avanza: Agustín Laje and Nicolás Márquez.
Villarruel has obtained the support of sectors of the Army for his actions to make visible the crimes of the leftist guerrillas in the 70s. He built a center called CELTYV to claim for the victims of those armed organizations. She has been linked to the Military Circle and is the daughter of a military man. They used to organize the “Friday Club”, a debate table coordinated by the Argentine VOX supporter Karina Mariani, where Villarruel spoke alongside Ortega Smith, secretary of the Spanish radical right party. She is also president of the Democratic Party of the province of Buenos Aires. Guillermo Montenegro, one of Victoria Villarruel’s most important advisors, is with Opus Dei. Milei and Villarruel were in Argentina and Mexico with the ultra-Catholic actor Eduardo Verástegui, organizer of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the presentation of his film Sound of Freedom.
Allied with conservative foundations and Christian schools, Laje and Márquez found a place to present and circulate their ideas. In connection with Alejandro Chafuen, who went from the organization that finances liberal think tanks in Latin America, Atlas, to the conservative Catholic institute Acton, they focused their actions on an opposition against what they call “gender ideology” and were part of that reaction. far-right global movement against LGBT groups. Agustín Laje has been welcomed by conservative foundations linked to evangelical churches in their different participations in Latin America and the United States. So, there is a difference between how this neoliberal economist, Milei, presents himself, speaking against the political class, which he calls “caste”, and proposing dollarization and the fact that there is a conservative religious project alongside him.
They use the cover of liberalism to promote an authoritarian project allied with the “international far right” that had been mobilized since Donald Trump’s victory in 2016. An example of this is the speech that Santiago Abascal, of VOX, gave in Budapest with Viktor Orbán in the year 2023: “Orbán managed to take Hungary out of communism and take it on the path to freedom.” Thus, they use the word freedom and its inscription in the liberal tradition to promote an authoritarian project.
In times of crisis, Milei adopts a populist strategy that divides society into two antagonistic camps. She establishes a border between “the good Argentines” against “the thieves” and “the leftists.” It is the same strategy that Bolsonaro used in Brazil, where he pitted “good citizens” against “leftists and communists.”
In Argentina, since 2018, a fusionist process of convergence began between neoliberal media economists such as Espert and Milei, who sought to produce a revitalization of economic liberalism, and Laje, Márquez, Gómez Centurión and Olmedo, who defended moral conservatism and the demand for a right-wing authoritarian regime.
The pandemic strengthened this fusionism against “the system” and the “government of the world order”, which produced a convergence of the historically distanced national-reactionary and liberal-conservative traditions.
They assumed, as their publicist, Santiago Oría, says, that they should be together to have better electoral chances. People who had a managerial position at CEMA are part of the technicians that Milei called for her match: Carlos Rodríguez, Roque Fernández and Diana Mondino. Rodríguez and Fernández did their doctorates at the University of Chicago; Mondino also studied economics in the United States. It is important if we consider that the majority of technical economists who supported authoritarian and neoliberal regimes, such as those of Pinochet and Bolsonaro, came from that university. As is the case of Paulo Guedes, former minister of Brazil.
Furthermore, some of these technicians were part of the neoliberal reforms of the 90s, during the neoliberal populist government of Carlos Menem. Milei says the following, offering himself as a miracle technician to put an end to one of the country’s main problems: “I am the only one who knows how to stop inflation and I have the conviction to do so.” He in turn published a book titled The End of Inflation. In this sense, it is interesting to think that Bolsonaro ran for the 2018 elections in Brazil as a military man who knew how to stop insecurity, a big problem at that time. In Milei’s case, he adopts the same “critical juncture expert role” as an economist. Diana Mondino is a fundamental “cadre” in the Milei team.
Several colleagues define her as “opportunistic,” since she has interests in Argentine banks that could benefit from a dollarization process. She is part of CEMA. In addition, her family owns a bank (ROELA) in the province of Córdoba and she has been on the board of directors of Loma Negra, Pampa Energía and other powerful corporations. Regarding her links with VOX and Bolsonaro, Mondino takes refuge in the economist’s speech: «I have not paid attention to Milei’s international alliances; “Go ask him,” she replied. Mondino, who has known Milei since CEMA and has been announced by the candidate as the next Minister of Foreign Affairs in the event of an electoral victory, has a very technocratic vision of reality. «I never read Rothbard; “He is a utopian,” said Mondino about the most important author for Milei.
At the same time, without any detailed explanation, Milei promotes a “dollarization myth” with econometric technicalities in the proposal and uses the rumor of a simplified version that the dollar can become a salary for everyone, as in the years of Menemism and as an appreciation against the inflationary process that occurs in Argentina. It would be useful to raise the discussion about Emilio Ocampo’s support for the dollarization project. Ocampo is a professor at CEMA, but not full-time; He is a member of Libertad y Progreso (a foundation that spreads liberal and socially conservative economic policies).
Ocampo is part of the lobby of the national banking sector and has even had business with Kirchnerism. CEMA and ESEADE are two institutions that have an important role in the emergence of this new radical pro-market libertarianism that is expressed in the visions close to Milei.
Furthermore, Fernando Cerimedo, who collaborated in organizing the assault on Brasilia on January 8, 2023, and whose social media accounts were blocked by the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil for his allegations of fraud to justify what happened in Brasilia, He is now working on Milei’s campaign.
This is framed in a context in which far-right groups such as the Federal Revolution and others linked to it generated the idea of killing Vice President Cristina Kirchner in 2022. Other more radicalized and marginal groups tried to put this criminal idea into practice. These far-right groups openly reject democracy and seek to represent direct and violent terrorist action with this motto: “To Kirchnerism, jail or bullet.” “Not an ounce of pity for these communists,” Agustín Romo, head of communications for La Libertad Avanza, said at the time, justifying the violent action. He is one of the main leaders of the party; He was standing behind Milei when she gave her victory speech in the 2023 primary election.
*Ariel Goldstein is a sociologist and writer. Author of “The authoritarian reconquest.”
by Ariel Goldstein
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