All of us, or almost all of us, at some point in our lives, have visited a nightclub. Low lights, loud and constant music and smoke curtains create an atmosphere in which young and old alike spend weekend nights. Throughout those nights, the darkness makes it difficult to see clearly, the songs follow one another without us being able to remember how many or which ones were played, and the smoke screens complicate our vision even more.
This confusing atmosphere perfectly describes the political communication strategy of the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, which could well be called “disco politics.” In this strategy, loud and constant statements act like disco music, ambiguous messages resemble blurred vision, and scandals function as smoke screens against internal problems.
This modus operandi consists of consecutively declaring loud messages, like songs in discos; that these messages are unclear, like the vision inside a nightclub; and constant scandals emerge, like the smoke screens that surround us on dance nights.
To better understand how this disco politics works we can resort to the invisible gorilla technique of Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons. This technique demonstrates how selective attention can cause us to ignore unexpected events, even very obvious ones, when we are focused on another task.
Scandals divert attention from important issues
As in the invisible gorilla experiment, President Milei’s “disco politics” saturates the audience’s attention with constant stimuli. Scandals and splashy statements act like the gorilla, distracting the audience from the government’s more subtle but potentially more important actions.
This strategy is also strengthened by the characteristics of liquid modernity that Zygmunt Bauman describes, where truth becomes relative and malleable. In this context, President Milei’s contradictory and changing messages reflect this fluidity of values, making it difficult for the audience to distinguish what is real from what is fictitious.
This occurs in a context of what the South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul calls time dissynchrony, where the present is fragmented into isolated moments. This is reflected in the incessant succession of scandals and messages from President Milei. Each new event eclipses the previous one, creating a feeling of vertigo that prevents deep reflection.
This alchemy of messages, time and distractions make possible a communication strategy that has been carried out since the beginning of Javier Milei’s government in Argentina.
Attack on Petro as a distraction
A clear example of this “disco politics” occurred in mid-April, when Javier Milei called the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, a “murderous dictator.” This diplomatic incident took place at the same time that the budget of public universities was being discussed, in particular the University of Buenos Aires (300,000 students, 30,000 professors).
The diplomatic escalation between Argentina and Spain arises in the midst of the legislative dispute over the bill that the nation’s Senate is dealing with in parliamentary committees and on which President Milei depends for the survival of his stabilization plan.
In the past there were also criticisms and insults to journalists, the fight with the El Libro Foundation, salary increases for the cabinet in the midst of the fiscal adjustment, the repeated questions about the president’s dogs, among other scenarios that we can classify as scandals or smoke screens.
That said, it is important to affirm that the policy carried out by the Argentine president is giving him good results. According to the Argentine consulting firm CB, Javier Milei is the South American president who grew the most in positive image in the month of May.
After a fiscal adjustment that the president himself described as “the largest in the entire history of humanity,” a government can only maintain a good level of approval thanks to a successful communication strategy.
Therefore, those who consider the La Libertad Avanza government in Argentina as inexperienced in politics should reconsider. Behind every scandal or message there is careful work, strategic thinking and a solid theoretical foundation.
Argentine society is immersed in this discotheque of confusing messages, scandals and constant distractions. However, the positive and growing image of President Milei shows that his communication team has managed to ensure that, upon leaving this media disco, society feels that, despite everything, it has been a good night.
This article has been published in «The Conversation«.
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