We feared the chainsaw, dollarization, the blowing up of the Central Bank, the sale of organs. And now, at times, it seems that the most fearsome thing about Javier Milei is that he will be any Macri – or a Menem or a Videla.
Mr. Javier Gerardo Milei is already the His Excellency President of the Argentine Republic. The transfer ceremony had the ephemeral pomp that these soaps usually have: a man happy because he is starting, a man bitter because he will never start. That sad verse from Calamaro, “Everything that ends, ends badly,” must have been written for the American governments: in the last 18 elections the ruling party won only once – and it was, sorry, in Paraguay.
As he assumed, he had to speak and, instead of doing so in front of deputies and senators and governors, supposed representatives of the country, he did so in front of a few thousand followers in Congress Plaza. His speech was broadcast on public television and radio that he intends to privatize, and he began by saying that “a new era begins today in Argentina” – and he stuck to the word era, era, era, era. But as soon as he could, he launched himself into his space of supposed knowledge, economics. To say that he had received a tremendous inheritance, the worst in history, and launch a cataract of horrible numbers – always in billions of dollars – and entangle them in some very dubious multiplications and, thus, end up prophesying an inflation of 15,000% per year “which we are going to fight tooth and nail to eradicate,” he said, literally.
And that, then, the adjustment is inevitable and cannot be gradual but model shock, all at once. The center of his politics, now, seems to consist of threatening a future so dark that a black future would be his great triumph. He announces months of brutal economic suffering and that “naturally that will have a negative impact,” he said, “on the level of activity, employment, real wages, the number of poor and indigent.” But there will be “a light at the end of the road,” she concluded, mistaking the metaphor again.
Or lying, like when he repeated for the umpteenth time that at the beginning of the 20th century “Argentina was the first world power”, an absolutely false fact. Or when he said that “in terms of security, Argentina has become a bloodbath,” speaking of a country with five homicides per 100,000 inhabitants per year, below the world average, well below the United States, Chile or Uruguay – and the public or people shouted “police, police”.
And, of course, he blamed the entire current disaster on statism, avoiding another significant fact: in Argentina, in the last half century, there were three privatizing governments: that of the military (1976-83), that of Carlos Menem (1989-99) and Macri's (2015-19). In other words, almost half of this half century the country was governed by neoliberals – who, in reality, took much more energetic and influential measures than the statists. But reality is one thing and discourse another, and the current discourse is that the only way to solve Argentine problems is to do again – with greater fury – the same thing that was done in 1976, 1989, 2015. The results of which, each time, they were catastrophes.
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The speech was, in any case, a minor anecdote. Now it is a matter of knowing what Mr. Milei will do with his government. To begin with, his team: of his ten ministers, five were senior Macri officials and four were part of Menem's administration. They are pure “caste”, the much hated caste. Only the chancellor has not held previous public positions and all of them – and her close subordinates – have business master's degrees from private universities; most worked, at some point, for banks and large investment funds. Meanwhile, the peculiar characters who put together the winning party at the beginning – and who gave it that air between delirious and innovative that helped it so much – were left without charges. The only one who is a little out of place, among former officials and former business executives, is a certain Javier Milei. Everything will consist of seeing, in these months, who manages to use who. If the caste that he denounced so much manipulates him, if he manages to get rid of it, if he intends to do so.
It doesn't seem like it, because now, in addition to his cabinet, the measures he would be about to take would leave his campaign reduced to an excellent farce. (And it would be a relief, because then he will not dollarize or blow up the Central Bank or release weapons or sell human organs). But, in that case, the result would be a magnificent deception: that, to impose the fourth neoliberal incarnation – after Videla, Menem and Macri – a man sent millions on board with the story of the chainsaw when what he is going to do is consolidate power of those who always had power in Argentina.
If so, we are left with a useless discussion: did he plan it from the first moment or did circumstances impose it on him? Or even: if it was planned, did he plan it himself or was it just a piece in a much more complex machine?
It is another anecdotal debate. Now, with all its force, the future advances. To try to recognize it, a minor fact plays a role: it seems certain that Milei confirmed, during her recent visit to Washington, the purchase of 24 F-16 combat aircraft from the United States. For a project whose great promise is to cut public spending, the measure is curious.
But we still lack data. The new government had announced that this Monday the 11th, the first day of extraordinary sessions of Congress, it would send its omnibus law with the vast majority of the economic measures, but now it says that it will take a few more days.
Meanwhile, there are three large sectors – roughly speaking – that promote and would celebrate Mr. Milei doing well.
The main one is the business power and its big channels: those media outlets that weeks ago were frightened by his fears and that now see him taller and blonder and with the possibility of saving the country in danger. They have discovered a “pragmatic mileism” that, after the image cleansing and concessions of the new president, allows them to take him as one of their own, the one who could benefit them with his economic measures and the permissiveness of an uncontrolled market.
Then there is the hard core of the young milleistas, the chainsaw enthusiasts, who wanted to break everything with good reasons. And there are, finally, many millions of Argentines who have nothing very in favor or very against Milei except the evidence that he is now the one in charge and the hope that if his government does well, they will do well. goodness.
But all three sectors could hit very annoying breakers. Businessmen, if the economic situation of “efforts and sacrifices” that Milei promises turns against them and inflation reduces consumption even more and they lose public works and it is not enough for them to lay off employees and the opening of exports sinks them a little more.
The chainsaws, if they discover that their idol, rather than breaking it, is going to consolidate the structures that make them live the way they do. What will happen if the Mileist boys – those much vaunted young people from the lower and lower middle class, under 30, without formal jobs – see that the Lion who was going to eat the world with his teeth has transformed into a Macri with long hair and determination ? How long are they going to wait calmly for that righteous fury that the angry man shouted at them to be unleashed? How long will the patience of those who voted for the most furious impatience last?
And there remains, of course, the quietest, deepest disappointment of the millions who wait for something because it is always better to wait for something, if they discover that they cannot pay for water or electricity or transportation without subsidies or they simply lose their job or aid. that they were allowed to eat from time to time.
All these variables are open and will be played in the coming months. Many Argentines – their new president has already announced it – are going to suffer a lot. It all depends, once again, on how much they want and can endure, how much they want and can wait. President Milei already said it: Argentina began a new era – and it is so similar to those of before.
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