It is not necessary to be a economist to know that unless politicians dare to take charge of the megacrisis that is devouring the country, the markets will do it. Without reserves, without access to credit, without a reliable national currency, there is no longer any alternative to a fierce adjustment.
understands it very well Javier Milei; With unprecedented candor, he broke one of the most powerful taboos in national politics by proclaiming himself determined to prune public spending with his chainsaw emblematic. Still, the libertarian’s frankness had its limits; He insisted that it would be the political “caste,” not the people, that would pay the costs of the adjustment he knew was inevitable. Unfortunately, he erred on the side of optimism; Whatever happens, what is about to happen cannot but impact millions of family budgets.
Is it Milei’s fault? Even more than in other countries, here there are few people willing to recognize that an economic catastrophe can be a consequence of decisions that were made months or even years before, so that the temptation will soon become very strong to attribute what is happening to Milei and his macrista allies. In the coming weeks, many will be wondering if the decline in their own purchasing power is due to a government headed by a liberal-minded man.
They will try to take advantage of the discomfort all those who fear losing the privileges that have allowed them to prosper in the midst of widespread misery. They will imply that it would have been quite easy to get out of the great national crisis that they themselves helped cause without asking anyone for sacrifices.
The majority’s answer to the question that such characters will surely pose will determine the future of the country. If they manage to convince a substantial swathe that the main author of their suffering is Milei, the incoming government’s tenure will be tumultuous and in all likelihood short. And then? The country would return to what it was before of the elections when it was hurtling towards the abyss.
Far from improving the economic situation, the eventual failure of the mileist administration It would only serve to leave it in the unkind hands of the financial markets that, with their usual coldness, would proceed to adjust all the variables without paying attention to the cries of those most affected.
Although Milei has not yet started the cyclopean task who applied to undertake, is already the target of criticism motivated by how difficult it is finding it to form a coherent cabinet. Many who were believed destined to fulfill key roles have been discarded, although in some cases it will have been because the president-elect wants to keep them in reserve, assuming that it would be in his interest not to expose them to the risks that the members of the original team will have to face. . In any case, there are signs that he has decided to prioritize the professional capacity of candidates for important positions over their political ties.
As for Milei himself, in the opinion of many he is adopting a more presidential public persona in order to appear worthy of the role for which he was elected. The change he is experiencing carries risks. Despite having moderated after coming second in the first round, the man who triumphed by an unexpectedly wide margin in the final elections still was the heavy-metal rock star who howled crude insults against other politicians, not the respectable academic that, perhaps temporarily, he has become.
Will it be given preserve charisma for a long time What made him the idol of countless young people if from now on he settles for a less disruptive profile? It is to be hoped so: otherwise, it will not take long for the cultural revolution that, with the involuntary collaboration of the Kirchnerists, to have been launched, will soon deflate.
In other latitudes, those who are sporadically interested in Argentine vicissitudes have not hesitated to place Milei in the ranks of an international “new right” that, to the alarm of many liberals, is gaining support in countries that had believed themselves immune to such phenomena. . In addition to the North American Donald Trump and Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro, the scared allude to the Italian Giorgia Meloni, the French Marine Le Pen, the Dutch Geert Wilders and the leaders of relatively new parties in Sweden, Germany, Spain and certain Eastern European countries that have recently enjoyed electoral successes. What they all have in common is their opposition to a technocratic status quo dominated by supposed progressives who tend to despise the working class of their respective countriesbe hostile to Israel and, in Europe, favor the immigration of large contingents of Muslims who tend to be reluctant to adopt the customs of the countries that receive them.
Do they all belong to “the extreme right”? According to traditional patterns, with few exceptions they are hybrids that combine characteristics previously considered leftist with others, such as nationalism, that in the opinion of Marxist exegetes are reactionary. In any case, the fact that, when Milei traveled to New York to pray at the tomb of a famous rabbi, the ambassador in Bolivarian Venezuela thought of calling him a “Nazi,” reflects what It is difficult for many to place it on the ideological board.
Although it has not hurt Milei to be considered the local representative of an increasingly influential international movement whose militants are reacting to the excesses of the “politically correct” that make up the newly established elitesthe difference is so great between the circumstances prevailing here and those of developed societies in which an annual inflation rate of five percent causes anguish and poverty is a marginal issue, that the similarities are merely hypothetical.
They may not be so in the case of Brazil, but as scandalous as the corruption of the sector of the political class currently headed by Lula was, the misdeeds attributed to the president anathematized by the Milei of the electoral campaign were at best anecdotal compared to those perpetrated by Cristina and members of her environment. Furthermore, while, before becoming president, Bolsonaro had spent many years in the political world of his country, Milei is still a true outsider who has not yet familiarized himself with the codes of “the caste” to which, despite his regret, he has just joined.
Although Milei would presumably like to subject her to a ruthless purge, until further notice she will have to practice the arts that are her own, since to govern without violating constitutional rules she will need to have the acquiescence of more legislators than those provided by La Libertad Avanza and the Pro who responds to his ally Mauricio Macri. The thing is that Congress, like the Judiciary, is structurally much more conservative than the Executive Branch because it is institutionally based on preferences prior to those that were expressed so dramatically just a couple of weeks ago.
Even if a parliamentary system governed the country, it would have been unlikely that the gap thus reflected would have been greatly reduced. If successful Milei managementOver time, the number of deputies, senators, mayors and governors affiliated with the libertarian movement could multiply, but for now it will have to operate in an environment more appropriate for the country of the day before yesterday than for the one suggested by the result of the presidential elections.
In addition to trying to heal some of the wounds of certain members of the local “caste” that he mistreated in the most furious phase of his electoral campaign, Milei, with the help of the alleged chancellor, Diana Mondino, has managed to reconcile with Pope Francis and foreign leaders, such as Joe Biden and Lula, whom he had struck down for his leftist leanings. It would seem that efforts in this regard are providing positive results; Fortunately for the president-elect, neither the Americans nor the Brazilians want conflicts with Argentina.
Milei is evolving rapidly, leaving behind the extravagant character that threatened to destroy everything in his path to mutate into something more akin to a conventional politician. Among other things, she has dollarization postponed of the economy until the country has the necessary resources. Although virtually all specialists agree that it would be an even more drastic change than the one assumed by convertibility, it would not be as eccentric as many say, since relatively recently, countries as important as France, Italy and Spain chose to replace their respective national currencies for another, the euro, which was based on the very strong German mark.
Although they did so for geopolitical reasons that do not figure in Milei’s thinking, the practical difficulties posed by the transition were similar to those that Argentina would have to overcome if its rulers finally decided that it would be better to allow the value of the currency to depend on the American Federal Reserve because experience had convinced them that the national political class would never be in a position to defend it.
