Argentina reaches peak stupidity after hitting 143% inflation
Country wins World Cup, then elects an anarcho-capitalist, climate change denying, COVID-19 vaccine conspiracist...and he's a Donald Trump clone
Dramatic uprising of stupidity can start from nowhere and only be seen when it reaches it's climax.
Oscar Auliq-Ice
It’s been said- by me but more importantly by many a political scientist- that a country gets precisely the political leadership it deserves. If that’s the case, then Argentina is F****D.
If you think American Presidential elections are a mess, you should take a long look at Argentina. The country may be a world champion in futbol, but when it comes to elections, well….
On the one side was the economic minister (Sergio Massa), who some might say is responsible for the country’s 143% inflation rate. On the other was a walking, talking freak show (Javier Milei) who campaigned with a chainsaw and his picture on an oversized $100 bill. AND he made it known that he used to be a tantric sex coach who’s seriously into threesomes.
So, Cabinet meetings should be interesting, yeah?
Argentina elected a new president on Sunday, far-right wackadoo economist and television personality Javier Milei — fulfilling the prophecy of his own dead English Mastiff, Conan, who told him from beyond the grave that God, specifically, said that Milei should get involved in politics because he was destined to become president.
Conan reportedly advises him on most of his political decisions.
Milei won with 56 percent of the vote against Peronist economy chief Sergio Massa after having, surprisingly, come in first in Argentina’s primary elections earlier this year. He has been compared to Donald Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro (so, fascists) and has literally zero political experience whatsoever.
What could possibly go wrong?
Indeed. What could go wrong…besides everything? Then again, when you’re sitting on a 143% inflation rate, and prices change daily, how much worse can things get?
No one outside of Argentina (and most people inside the country) knows anything about Milei. What little they do know doesn’t inspire confidence. But he won the election, so we’ll see what happens, eh? Besides, America survived Trump, and Brazil survived Bolsonaro, no?
Sort of.
Say what you will about Javier Milei, he’s got one of the most unique resumes for a politician you’ll ever run across:
He was previously a tantric sex coach and wants people to know that he is super into threesomes.
He says he is an anarcho-capitalist, which is not a thing no matter how hard some very stupid people try to make it one, because while there are many strains of anarchism, one constant is that it specifically opposes hierarchy, which is a necessity for capitalism. It has no philosophical connection to any other form of anarchism, which is rooted in the socialist movements of the 19th Century, and is really just a thing some incredible assholes thought would make them sound cool.
He wants to turn the country into an AnCap paradise, with almost no taxes, no social programs and where poor people are free to sell their body parts on the open market.
No abortion though!
Or comprehensive sex education in schools, which he believes is a “Marxist plot to destroy the family.”
He is a climate change denier.
And he’s an asshole about trans people and LGBTQ people in general.
He wields a chainsaw at his rallies, representing his “chainsaw plan” to eliminate public health and education funding, plus 10 out of 18 government departments.
Aside from talking to his dead dog on the regular and seeking political advice from him, he also spent $50,000 to have the dog cloned five times.
Four of those Clone Dogs are named Milton, Murray, Robert and Lucas, after the kind of economists most terrible dudes stop talking about after college, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, and Robert Lucas.
He has not said, to my knowledge, if he intends to replace abortion rights with “a free baby market” as Rothbard dreamed. Wouldn’t put it past him.
He really hates the Pope, whom he has called a “filthy Leftist,” “imbecile who defends social justice,” a “son of a bitch preaching communism” and “the representative of the evil one on Earth.”
He also once tweeted at the Pontifex that “Jesus didn’t pay taxes,” which does not actually seem true given the whole “render under Caesar” thing, unless he had some special “Son of God” exemption that I am unaware of because it wasn’t in that other Andrew Lloyd Webber show.
He wants the UK to give him the Falkland Islands.
He doesn’t brush his hair, but he does contour.
He was in a Rolling Stones cover band called “Everest” when he was younger. Here he is singing La Traviata in some kind of superhero outfit for reasons I am not 100 percent clear on (though actually not the worst version of that aria I have heard in the last week).
He wants to replace the Argentine peso with the US dollar, which I do not think is a thing the US would even let him do. However, his rallies frequently include giant dollar bills with his face on them.
The parallels between Javier Milei, Donald Trump, and Jair Bolsonaro aren’t necessarily numerous, but what there are can be taken as reasons for concern given the previous experience of the United States and Brazil.
Javier Milei was first introduced to the Argentine public as a combative television personality with an unruly hairdo and a tendency to insult his critics. So when he entered Argentina’s presidential race last year, he was viewed by many as a sideshow.
On Sunday, he was elected Argentina’s next president, and is now tasked with guiding one of Latin America’s largest economies out of one of its worst economic crises.
Many Argentines awoke on Monday anxious, others hopeful, but just about everyone was uncertain about what lay ahead.
Perhaps the only certainty about the country’s political and economic future was that, in three weeks, a far-right political outsider with little governing experience was set to take the reins of a government that he has vowed to upend.
If that all sounds a bit familiar to Americans, it should. Donald Trump is a bloviator and a showman who used his affinity for getting himself into the news and in front of cameras to allow Americans to get to know him. That Americans didn’t necessarily like him was beside the point- they bought into him, just as Argentines appear to be doing with Javier Milei.
At the moment, there are far more questions than answers. Sergio Massa was the “safe” candidate, the one Argentina’s Peronist apparatus backed and turned into the overwhelming favorite. But the economic chaos and uncertainty- including the 143% inflation rate- proved to be a bridge too far for many Argentines, especially sincee Massa had been the government’s economic minister. No one could say with certainty how much he was to blame for the inflation rate, but he was the face they could attribute to it.
Now, Argentines face an uncertain future. They know change is needed, but they’re unsure if the change agent is what the country needs.
Well, Argentina, y’all are about to find out.
Micaela Sánchez, 31, an actress and drama teacher, said she and many friends were worried by Mr. Milei’s pledges to overhaul the government, his history of attacking political adversaries and his comments downplaying the atrocities of the dictatorship.
“It’s really a bleak and frightening panorama for all of us who work in culture, who work with people, for those who educate, and for those in health care,” she said. “The only thing I can say is that I’m very scared and very sad.”
But Yhoel Saldania, 27, a shop owner, said keeping Argentina as it is would have been far riskier than taking a bet on Mr. Milei. “The other governments promise and promise, and nothing ever changes,” he said. “We want a change that’s real.”
A change that’s real. How will Argentina know when that change has arrived? The country has little in the way of real stability in recent history. Citizens have known too much upheaval and unrest and very little of stability. The period the country’s about to enter promises anything but steadiness.
Argentina and the world now face the country’s “Donald Trump moment.” No one has any idea what to expect from the chainsaw-wielding tantric sex coach and pet psychic…other than whatever happens is unlikely to be done quietly or with any degree of subtlety.
Don’t even get me started on his being a COVID-19 vaccine conspiracist….
Mr. Milei, a libertarian economist and freshman congressman, made clear in his victory speech on Sunday that he would move fast to overhaul the government and economy. “Argentina’s situation is critical,” he said. “The changes that our country needs are drastic. There is no place for gradualism.”
Of course, the people who will be hurt by drastic moves and a rejection of “gradualism” may be those who voted for Milei. Will he be able to turn around Argentina’s economy without causing tremendous pain among the country’s middle class? That remains to be seen.
Historically speaking, sweeping and rapid economic change in Latin America generally hits the middle class the hardest, leading to a cycle of political unrest often followed by even more economic turmoil. Will Milei be able to tame 143% inflation without increasing unemployment and depleting the savings of Argentina’s already struggling middle class?
More importantly, will he be able to maintain political control and minimize unrest while he attempts to get the economy under control? Will he be forced to crack down on political unrest, which will almost certainly crater his popularity and ratchet up protests and political violence?
Will he be able to persuade jittery foreign investors that Argentina is still a good bet and a stable place for them to build factories and other infrastructure to provide jobs for Argentine workers?
Markets cheered his election, with Argentine stocks and bonds rising on U.S. exchanges (the Argentine market was closed for a holiday). Even without clarity on what he can accomplish, markets appear to view him as a better economic bet than his mostly leftist predecessors.
Failed economic policies — including overspending, protectionist trade measures, suffocating international debt and the printing of more pesos to pay for it — have sent the nation of 46 million people into an economic tailspin.
Annual inflation has surpassed 140 percent, the world’s third highest rate, leaving many residents rushing to spend or convert their pesos to U.S. dollars or cryptocurrencies as quickly as they can, while the country’s growing number of poor increasingly line up at food banks and soup kitchens.
In a sign that perhaps he wasn’t expecting to win the election, Milei appears to be wobbling on some of his pre-election promises. In a Monday morning interview, the President-elect said that Argentine law may prevent him from privatizing health care and education. Perhaps the enormity of his promises vis-a-vis reality is beginning to dawn on Milei now that it all on his shoulders.
It’s all fun and games until you win…and suddenly the people are looking to you to solve their problems, just as you promised them you would.
Good luck with that, eh? Reality sure can be a cold slap in the face.
During the campaign, he promised to make the US Dollar the country’s currency. During the same interview, when asked about that promise, he said, “the currency we adopt will be the currency that Argentines choose.”
Hmm….
No one knows what all this means, and there’s a good chance Javier Milei doesn’t, either. He’s inherited a country with a plethora of very significant problems. So, where to start? Healthcare? Education? The economy? They’re all important, all crying out for attention, and there’s no way he can address, much less solve, all of them immediately.
Good luck juggling those chainsaws, Mr. President.
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The only consolation in this is that it's a reminder that we're not alone in the world in having reactionary, low information, but highly motivated voters. That's not a lot of consolation, but given that Argentinians have just elected a circus clown with a chainsaw as their president, it's all we have.