Although the furious speech that Javier Milei delivered at the start of a new round of regular sessions of Congress disappointed those who expected him to talk about concrete proposals, it served to remind us that, for the president, what matters most is the cultural war he is waging against everything linked to the old order. A fervent supporter of the “change of mentality” that, for many decades, those convinced that Argentina was the victim of an unusual collective psychosis that left it almost paralyzed have been asking for it, Milei takes it for granted that the fate of his project, and that of the country, will depend entirely on his ability to persuade the most influential sectors that all the alleged alternatives to the strategy he has formulated would end catastrophically badly and that therefore it must be supported.
Likewise, he knows he is obliged to make people think that the movement he has created already dominates the political scene to such an extent that it would be foolish to deny it, which is why his image advisors choreographed the broadcast on the national network of the opening of sessions with the purpose of providing an impression of irresistible strength. It is an illusion since Milei’s party is still a minority in the Deputies and the Senate, but the spectacle that the government put on may have served to convince many political professionals that it would be in their interest to accompany him.
In this company, the confusion that reigns in the opposition ranks helps him a lot. The mere fact that a character as extravagant and as aggressively libertarian as Milei has managed not only to survive more than two years in power but also to have retained the support of millions of voters, keeps both Peronists and natural sympathizers of the disappearing parties that could be described as moderate or center-right traumatized.
It is not surprising, then, that few days go by without some politicians, frustrated by the inability of their leaders to develop coherent alternatives to the mileista program, choosing to approach La Libertad Avanza. Although the new ruling party is still far from being a majority, last Sunday its adherents had the luxury of behaving as if there were no doubts in this regard.
The most vulnerable targets of the insults that the owner of the microphone, Milei, fired against those who do not share his opinions were, when not, the Kirchnerists, closely followed by the ultra-leftists. Without mercy, to the joy of his troops, he was cruel to Cristina, “the idiot” and treated the Kirchnerists as a “gang of thieves” who for years had dedicated themselves to stealing from the other inhabitants of the country. Of course, it is very convenient for the anarcho-capitalist to pretend to believe that the Kirchnerists are still in a position to return to power, although at this point there are good reasons to assume that Cristina already belongs to the past. Milei can only pray that the former president continues to be “leader of the gang” for a few more years despite remaining confined in San José 1111. If the Peronists finally find a new leader who, of course, would have to be a character with more charisma than Axel Kiciloff, they could regroup and then take advantage of the serious social difficulties that will surely proliferate in the coming months and years.
To defend himself, Milei will attribute the problems that have already begun to arise to the bulk of the national business community that, accustomed as it is to living surrounded by protectionist barriers, is unable to compete with more seasoned foreign rivals and who therefore fears being overwhelmed by an avalanche of imports that are cheaper and of better quality than local production. According to Milei, such businessmen are “complicit in corruption,” which is somewhat unfair since, given the circumstances, all businessmen had to familiarize themselves with the unwritten rules of the regulated markets that ruled the country for so long.
Be that as it may, although there is no doubt that Milei is right when he relates Argentina’s lamentable economic performance to the protectionism that, as he says, turned it into “the most closed country in the world for its level of GDP,” it is one thing to succeed on a theoretical level and quite another to successfully manage a transition that all experts in the field believe necessary.
Unfortunately for many, it is entirely possible that, thanks to its energy and mining resources, Argentina is about to enjoy a period of extremely rapid macroeconomic growth combined with a prolonged industrial recession, a lasting decline in consumption and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. To make the prospects for the country even more complicated, the very competitive economy that the libertarian dreams of would demand capabilities and attitudes that are radically different from those required by the existing one. Will those who make up the local workforce be able to adapt to the new reality that is coming? Unless many entrepreneurs, technicians and workers manage to do so, imports will not be limited to inputs and consumer goods but, as is the case in the oil-producing countries of the Arab world, they would also have to include many trained people.
Thus, it is feasible that, for a long time, an updated version of the populist “model” will persist in which an internationally competitive sector, which until now has been the countryside, subsidizes in one way or another almost everyone else. This would be a variant of what is already happening in some developed countries in which a handful of high-tech companies generate a very large proportion of the money used to finance social welfare programs. Although many may not like it, everywhere there are more and more people who, for whatever reasons, are not in a position to contribute anything positive to the economy, hence the growing number of homeless men and women who live as best they can in opulent cities like New York and Los Angeles. In the city of Buenos Aires, the now routine presence of such people in the central streets is causing concern. Today, progress has human costs comparable to those of the first industrial revolution.
Even so, since the legislative elections in October, the Milei project, which in the months preceding them lost momentum, is advancing with renewed vigor. Although the labor reform that both chambers approved is far from being as drastic as Milei would have liked, he can boast of having achieved something that eluded a long series of presidents, starting with Raúl Alfonsín, whose inability to subdue union members had a very negative impact on his management. The half-sanction by the Senate of a new glacier law and the full endorsement of the lowering of the age of imputability to 14 years also contributed to strengthening the impression that the libertarian government has the wind in its sails. Since in politics subjective impressions can matter even more than mere reality, to ensure majority support the government has to make people believe that it would be useless to try to stop it.
Will what is happening in the rest of the world collaborate with mileism? The war that has just broken out in the Middle East could benefit Argentina by increasing the commercial and strategic value of its excess gas and oil. Until further notice, the drop in the international price of oil that was recorded before the decision of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu to try to put an end to the Iranian Islamist regime will not cause concern. In other words, it is to be expected that European countries, which, deprived of Russian gas, were already looking for alternative sources of energy, will be more willing than before to invest a lot of money in Argentina.
However, this does not mean that the country will not face very serious risks due to a conflict that is not foreign to it. In the region there are many Islamist cells programmed to commit suicide attacks against Jewish targets, Americans and, because the country is a virtually unconditional ally of the United States and Israel, Argentines. In addition to being a terribly cruel dictatorship that, just a month ago, repressed a popular rebellion by killing tens of thousands of protesters, the Iranian theocratic regime defends an apocalyptic cult whose spiritual leaders teach that dying fighting infidels is an enviable privilege.
To justify the attack, the governments of the United States and Israel insist that allowing such individuals to acquire nuclear weapons would have horrendous consequences for everyone else, since, unlike communists, extreme rightists or others with geopolitical aspirations, they would not feel intimidated by what could happen if they chose to use them but, on the contrary, they would be more than willing to provoke a universal conflagration that, according to the creed to which they adhere, would serve to inaugurate a new era in which the world The whole person would submit to the true faith, that is, to his own.
