Some­times the best thing you can do is burn it all down and start over. It’s not actu­al­ly a great strat­e­gy for fix­ing soci­ety’s prob­lems. But it’s an increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar one. This time it’s Argenti­na’s turn to do the ‘let the far right nut job burn it all down’ schtick. They did. They actu­al­ly elect­ed the anar­cho-cap­i­tal­ist Javier Melei to the pres­i­den­cy with 55.7% of the vote. The guy who sup­ports the cre­ation of an unreg­u­lat­ed mar­ket­place for human organs is now the pres­i­dent. “Don’t tread on me” Gads­den flags can be seen in the cel­e­brat­ing crowds of sup­port­ers.

It’s hard to know what exact­ly we should actu­al­ly expect from this. But it’s obvi­ous that tack­ling Argenti­na’s high infla­tion is going to be a pri­ma­ry chal­lenge. Will Milei’s pro­pos­al to dol­lar­ize the econ­o­my and abol­ish the Cen­tral Bank be a suc­cess, at least in the short run? It’s a rather iron­ic move for a self-declared lib­er­tar­i­an giv­en that it would effec­tive hand con­trol of Argenti­na’s mon­e­tary pol­i­cy to the US Fed­er­al Reserve. But that’s appar­ent­ly the plan. Or at least that was the elec­toral sales pitch. We’ll see what he actu­al­ly does.

But while it’s hard to imag­ine Milei actu­al­ly suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ing some sort of far right pol­i­cy pre­scrip­tion for Argenti­na’s woes, it’s not hard to imag­ine a cult of per­son­al­i­ty emerg­ing from all this. And that brings us to anoth­er area of ‘reform’ we can expect from Milei’s admin­is­tra­tion: his­tor­i­cal ‘reform’, at least in terms of how Argenti­na’s mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship is viewed. Yes, it turns out his run­ning mate, Vic­to­ria Vil­laru­el, is a long-stand sup­port­er of mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship and some­one who feels the mil­i­tary offi­cers from those years have been unfair­ly per­se­cut­ed. Vil­laru­el even orga­nized back in Sep­tem­ber a ‘trib­ute’ ral­ly for the vic­tims of 1970s left-wing groups, as part of a clear attempt to estab­lish a ‘both sides’ nar­ra­tive about that chap­ter in Argenti­na’s his­to­ry. And now she’s the vice pres­i­dent.

So we’ll see what hap­pens. But a major­i­ty of the vot­ers in Argenti­na just vot­ed to burn it all down. And that’s pre­sum­ably what’s going to hap­pen in one form or anoth­er:

Asso­ci­at­ed Press

Fiery right-wing pop­ulist Javier Milei wins Argentina’s pres­i­den­cy and promis­es ‘dras­tic’ changes

By DANIEL POLITI and DAVID BILLER
Updat­ed 1:36 AM CST, Novem­ber 20, 2023

BUENOS AIRES, Argenti­na (AP) — Pop­ulist Javier Milei resound­ing­ly won Argentina’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion Sun­day, swing­ing the coun­try to the right fol­low­ing a fierce­ly polar­ized cam­paign in which he promised a dra­mat­ic shake-up to the state to deal with soar­ing infla­tion and ris­ing pover­ty.

With 99.4% of votes tal­lied in the pres­i­den­tial runoff, Milei had 55.7% and Econ­o­my Min­is­ter Ser­gio Mas­sa 44.3%, accord­ing to Argentina’s elec­toral author­i­ty. It is the high­est per­cent­age that a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date has received since the South Amer­i­can country’s return to democ­ra­cy in 1983.

In the streets of Buenos Aires, dri­vers honked their horns and many took to the streets to cel­e­brate in sev­er­al neigh­bor­hoods. Out­side Milei’s par­ty head­quar­ters, a hotel in down­town Buenos Aires, a full-on par­ty kicked off with sup­port­ers singing, buy­ing beers from ven­dors and set­ting off col­ored smoke bombs. They waved Argen­tine flags and the yel­low Gads­den flag, embla­zoned with the words “Don’t Tread On Me,” which Milei’s move­ment has adopt­ed.

Inside, the self-described anar­cho-cap­i­tal­ist who has been com­pared to for­mer U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, deliv­ered his vic­to­ry speech, say­ing the “recon­struc­tion of Argenti­na begins today.”

“Argentina’s sit­u­a­tion is crit­i­cal. The changes our coun­try needs are dras­tic. There is no room for grad­u­al­ism, no room for luke­warm mea­sures,” Milei told sup­port­ers, who chant­ed “Lib­er­ty, lib­er­ty!” and “Let them all leave” in a ref­er­ence to the country’s polit­i­cal class.

Mas­sa of the rul­ing Per­o­nist par­ty had already con­ced­ed defeat, say­ing Argen­tines “chose anoth­er path.”

...

With a Milei vic­to­ry, the coun­try will take an abrupt shift right­ward and a fresh­man law­mak­er who got his start as a tele­vi­sion talk­ing head blast­ing what he called the “polit­i­cal caste” will assume the pres­i­den­cy.

Infla­tion has soared above 140% and pover­ty has wors­ened while Mas­sa has held his post. Milei has said he would slash the size of the gov­ern­ment, dol­lar­ize the econ­o­my and elim­i­nate the Cen­tral Bank as a way to tack­le gal­lop­ing infla­tion that he blames on suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments print­ing mon­ey indis­crim­i­nate­ly in order to fund pub­lic spend­ing. He also espous­es sev­er­al con­ser­v­a­tive social poli­cies, includ­ing an oppo­si­tion to sex edu­ca­tion in schools and abor­tion, which Argentina’s Con­gress legal­ized in 2020.

“This is a tri­umph that is less due to Milei and his pecu­liar­i­ties and par­tic­u­lar­i­ties and more to the demand for change,” said Lucas Romero, the head of Syn­op­sis, a local polit­i­cal con­sult­ing firm. “What is being expressed at the polls is the weari­ness, the fatigue, the protest vote of the major­i­ty of Argen­tines.”

Massa’s cam­paign cau­tioned Argen­tines that his lib­er­tar­i­an opponent’s plan to elim­i­nate key min­istries and oth­er­wise sharply cur­tail the state would threat­en pub­lic ser­vices, includ­ing health and edu­ca­tion, and wel­fare pro­grams many rely on. Mas­sa also drew atten­tion to his opponent’s often aggres­sive rhetoric and open­ly ques­tioned his men­tal acu­ity; ahead of the first round, Milei some­times car­ried a revving chain­saw at ral­lies.

“There were lot of vot­ers that weren’t con­vinced to vote Milei, who would vote null or blank. But come the day of the vote, they vot­ed for Milei because they’re all pissed off,” Andrei Roman, CEO of Brazil-based poll­ster Atlas Intel, said by phone. “Every­one talked about the fear of Milei win­ning. I think this was a fear of Mas­sa win­ning and econ­o­my con­tin­u­ing the way it is, infla­tion and all that.”

Milei accused Mas­sa and his allies of run­ning a “cam­paign of fear” and he walked back some of his most con­tro­ver­sial pro­pos­als, such as loos­en­ing gun con­trol. In his final cam­paign ad, Milei looks at the cam­era and assures vot­ers he has no plans to pri­va­tize edu­ca­tion or health care.

Milei’s screeds res­onat­ed wide­ly with Argen­tines angered by their strug­gle to make ends meet, par­tic­u­lar­ly young men.

“Incred­i­bly hap­py, ecsta­t­ic, it’s a glob­al his­tor­i­cal phe­nom­e­non!” Luca Rodríguez, a 20-year-old law stu­dent, said out­side Milei’s head­quar­ters after spray­ing a bot­tle of cham­pagne into the air onto those around him, who squealed with glee. “I want to break free from this ridicu­lous elite that takes away all our rights, all the tax mon­ey that pres­sures us and doesn’t let us live in peace.”

...

Most pre-elec­tion polls, which have been noto­ri­ous­ly wrong at every step of this year’s cam­paign, showed a sta­tis­ti­cal tie between the two can­di­dates or Milei slight­ly ahead.

Under­scor­ing the bit­ter divi­sion this cam­paign has brought to the fore, Milei received both jeers and cheers on Fri­day night at the leg­endary Colón The­ater in Buenos Aires.

The acri­mo­ny was also evi­dent Sun­day when Milei’s run­ning mate, Vic­to­ria Vil­laru­el, went to vote and was met by pro­test­ers angry at her claims that the num­ber of vic­tims from Argentina’s bloody 1976–1983 mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship is far below what human rights orga­ni­za­tions have long claimed, among oth­er con­tro­ver­sial posi­tions.

The vote took place amid Milei’s alle­ga­tions of pos­si­ble elec­toral fraud, rem­i­nis­cent of those from Trump and for­mer far-right Brazil­ian Pres­i­dent Jair Bol­sonaro. With­out pro­vid­ing evi­dence, Milei claimed that the first round of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion was plagued by irreg­u­lar­i­ties that affect­ed the result. Experts say such irreg­u­lar­i­ties can­not swing an elec­tion, and that his asser­tions were part­ly aimed at fir­ing up his base and moti­vat­ing his sup­port­ers to become mon­i­tors of vot­ing sta­tions. Many have expressed con­cerns they under­mine demo­c­ra­t­ic norms.

Both Bol­sonaro and Trump con­grat­u­lat­ed Milei on social media.

“The whole world was watch­ing! I am very proud of you,” Trump wrote on his plat­form, Truth Social. “You will turn your Coun­try around and tru­ly Make Argenti­na Great Again!”

...

———-

“Fiery right-wing pop­ulist Javier Milei wins Argentina’s pres­i­den­cy and promis­es ‘dras­tic’ changes” by DANIEL POLITI and DAVID BILLER; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 11/20/2023

“In the streets of Buenos Aires, dri­vers honked their horns and many took to the streets to cel­e­brate in sev­er­al neigh­bor­hoods. Out­side Milei’s par­ty head­quar­ters, a hotel in down­town Buenos Aires, a full-on par­ty kicked off with sup­port­ers singing, buy­ing beers from ven­dors and set­ting off col­ored smoke bombs. They waved Argen­tine flags and the yel­low Gads­den flag, embla­zoned with the words “Don’t Tread On Me,” which Milei’s move­ment has adopt­ed.”

Crowds wav­ing the Gads­den flag along­side the Argen­tine flags. It does­n’t exact­ly bode well for Argenti­na. But a major­i­ty of the Argen­tine pub­lic appears to have decide that burn­ing it all down is the prefer­able option for deal­ing with infla­tion. Will dol­lar­iz­ing the Argen­tine econ­o­my, elim­i­nat­ing the Cen­tral Bank, and gut­ting gov­ern­ment spend­ing some­how mag­i­cal­ly fix every­thing? That’s the bet Argenti­na just made. An anar­cho-cap­i­tal­ist Hail Mary play. About the only sil­ver lin­ing here for Argenti­na is that Milei’s win means the coun­try won’t have to through the expe­ri­ence of hav­ing a major can­di­date make inces­sant ‘stolen elec­tion’ claims after los­ing:

...
Inside, the self-described anar­cho-cap­i­tal­ist who has been com­pared to for­mer U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, deliv­ered his vic­to­ry speech, say­ing the “recon­struc­tion of Argenti­na begins today.”

“Argentina’s sit­u­a­tion is crit­i­cal. The changes our coun­try needs are dras­tic. There is no room for grad­u­al­ism, no room for luke­warm mea­sures,” Milei told sup­port­ers, who chant­ed “Lib­er­ty, lib­er­ty!” and “Let them all leave” in a ref­er­ence to the country’s polit­i­cal class.

...

With a Milei vic­to­ry, the coun­try will take an abrupt shift right­ward and a fresh­man law­mak­er who got his start as a tele­vi­sion talk­ing head blast­ing what he called the “polit­i­cal caste” will assume the pres­i­den­cy.

Infla­tion has soared above 140% and pover­ty has wors­ened while Mas­sa has held his post. Milei has said he would slash the size of the gov­ern­ment, dol­lar­ize the econ­o­my and elim­i­nate the Cen­tral Bank as a way to tack­le gal­lop­ing infla­tion that he blames on suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments print­ing mon­ey indis­crim­i­nate­ly in order to fund pub­lic spend­ing. He also espous­es sev­er­al con­ser­v­a­tive social poli­cies, includ­ing an oppo­si­tion to sex edu­ca­tion in schools and abor­tion, which Argentina’s Con­gress legal­ized in 2020.

“This is a tri­umph that is less due to Milei and his pecu­liar­i­ties and par­tic­u­lar­i­ties and more to the demand for change,” said Lucas Romero, the head of Syn­op­sis, a local polit­i­cal con­sult­ing firm. “What is being expressed at the polls is the weari­ness, the fatigue, the protest vote of the major­i­ty of Argen­tines.”

...

The vote took place amid Milei’s alle­ga­tions of pos­si­ble elec­toral fraud, rem­i­nis­cent of those from Trump and for­mer far-right Brazil­ian Pres­i­dent Jair Bol­sonaro. With­out pro­vid­ing evi­dence, Milei claimed that the first round of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion was plagued by irreg­u­lar­i­ties that affect­ed the result. Experts say such irreg­u­lar­i­ties can­not swing an elec­tion, and that his asser­tions were part­ly aimed at fir­ing up his base and moti­vat­ing his sup­port­ers to become mon­i­tors of vot­ing sta­tions. Many have expressed con­cerns they under­mine demo­c­ra­t­ic norms.
...

And in case it’s not entire­ly clear the new ‘pop­ulist’ pres­i­dent is a crea­ture of the far right, he just hap­pened to select Vic­to­ria Vil­laru­el, a long-stand­ing apol­o­gist for Argenti­na’s mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship, to be his run­ning mate:

...
Under­scor­ing the bit­ter divi­sion this cam­paign has brought to the fore, Milei received both jeers and cheers on Fri­day night at the leg­endary Colón The­ater in Buenos Aires.

The acri­mo­ny was also evi­dent Sun­day when Milei’s run­ning mate, Vic­to­ria Vil­laru­el, went to vote and was met by pro­test­ers angry at her claims that the num­ber of vic­tims from Argentina’s bloody 1976–1983 mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship is far below what human rights orga­ni­za­tions have long claimed, among oth­er con­tro­ver­sial posi­tions.
...

And Vil­laru­el has­n’t just made white­wash­ing claims about the num­ber of vic­tims of Argenti­na’s mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship. She actu­al­ly orga­nized a ral­ly back in Sep­tem­ber ded­i­cat­ed to the vic­tims of left-wing ter­ror­ism, in what was clear­ly an attempt to foment a kind of ‘both sides did it’ nar­ra­tive about this bru­tal peri­od in Argenti­na’s his­to­ry:

Asso­ci­at­ed Press

Pro­test­ers decry trib­ute for vic­tims of left­ist groups in Argentina’s 1970s polit­i­cal vio­lence

By DANIEL POLITI
Updat­ed 8:16 PM CST, Sep­tem­ber 4, 2023

BUENOS AIRES, Argenti­na (AP) — Human rights activists sur­round­ed the Buenos Aires City Leg­is­la­ture on Mon­day to denounce an event hon­or­ing vic­tims of armed left­ist groups dur­ing the 1970s, when Argenti­na was engulfed by polit­i­cal vio­lence.

The trib­ute was arranged by Vic­to­ria Vil­laru­el, the run­ning-mate of right-wing pop­ulist pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Javier Milei, and demon­stra­tors called it an attempt to change the nar­ra­tive about crimes against human­i­ty per­pe­trat­ed by the country’s last mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship.

Vil­laru­el, a law­mak­er, has long defend­ed mil­i­tary offi­cers con­vict­ed of crimes against human­i­ty dur­ing the bloody 1976–1983 dic­ta­tor­ship.

“For 40 years, the vic­tims of ter­ror­ism were erased from mem­o­ry, swept under the rug of his­to­ry,” Vil­laru­el said at the event, where atten­dance was tight­ly con­trolled.

Police set up bar­ri­ers around the City Leg­is­la­ture to keep back hun­dreds of demon­stra­tors who said the event sought to rein­stall the idea that the mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship car­ried out its crimes as part of a civ­il war with left­ist gueril­la groups.

The event took place weeks after Milei shook up Argentina’s polit­i­cal land­scape by receiv­ing the most votes in nation­al pri­ma­ry elec­tions, posi­tion­ing him as a lead­ing can­di­date for next month’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

...

The event includ­ed brief talks by three peo­ple who had fam­i­ly mem­bers slain by left­ist guer­ril­las in the 1970s before the 1976 mil­i­tary coup.

Argentina’s mil­i­tary jun­ta that ruled from 1976 through 1983 is wide­ly con­sid­ered the most dead­ly of the dic­ta­tor­ships that ruled much of Latin Amer­i­ca in the 1970s and 1980s. It detained, tor­tured and killed peo­ple sus­pect­ed of oppos­ing the regime. Human rights groups esti­mate 30,000 were slain, many of whom dis­ap­peared with­out a trace.

Argenti­na has done more than any oth­er coun­try in the region to bring mil­i­tary offi­cers to jus­tice and has held 296 tri­als relat­ing to dic­ta­tor­ship-era crimes against human­i­ty since 2006, after amnesty laws were struck down. In those, 1,115 peo­ple have been con­vict­ed, accord­ing to the Pub­lic Prosecutor’s Office.

But some Argen­tines, includ­ing rel­a­tives of for­mer mil­i­tary offi­cers, argue that not enough has been done to pros­e­cute crimes com­mit­ted by armed left­ist groups in the 1970s.

“There are vic­tims on both sides, we have to rec­og­nize that,” said one attendee, Clau­dia Ippoli­to.

Orga­niz­ers of the event took pains to empha­size they do not defend the crimes com­mit­ted by the dic­ta­tor­ship.

“We aren’t endors­ing the dic­ta­tor­ship or the trag­ic con­se­quences of that vio­la­tion of the demo­c­ra­t­ic pact. In fact, our group strong­ly and unequiv­o­cal­ly con­demns it,” said Buenos Aires city leg­is­la­tor Lucia Mon­tene­gro, who host­ed the event along­side Vil­laru­el and is also a mem­ber of Milei’s par­ty.

But Alan Iud, a human rights lawyer who has par­tic­i­pat­ed in tri­als relat­ing to dic­ta­tor­ship-era crimes, said it was clear the event was “some­thing more than a sim­ple trib­ute event.”

Iud said there is con­cern among human rights activists that a Milei vic­to­ry in the elec­tion could trans­late into a change in the way dic­ta­tor­ship-era crimes are judged.

“They’re look­ing for sym­me­try regard­ing crimes of state ter­ror­ism and that can­not be con­doned,” Iud said, argu­ing that crimes com­mit­ted by the state can­not be com­pared to those car­ried out by indi­vid­ual groups.

...

————

“Pro­test­ers decry trib­ute for vic­tims of left­ist groups in Argentina’s 1970s polit­i­cal vio­lence” by DANIEL POLITI; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 09/04/2023

“Vil­laru­el, a law­mak­er, has long defend­ed mil­i­tary offi­cers con­vict­ed of crimes against human­i­ty dur­ing the bloody 1976–1983 dic­ta­tor­ship.”

Yes, just two and a half months before the elec­tion, Milei’s run­ning mate decid­ed to orga­nized trib­ute to the vic­tims of the left. And despite the troll­ish claims that this event was not in any way intend­ed to jus­ti­fy the dic­ta­tor­ship, it was obvi­ous­ly an attempt to do just that by mak­ing a kind of ‘both sides’ claim about this dark chap­ter in Argenti­na’s not-so-dis­tant past:

...
Argenti­na has done more than any oth­er coun­try in the region to bring mil­i­tary offi­cers to jus­tice and has held 296 tri­als relat­ing to dic­ta­tor­ship-era crimes against human­i­ty since 2006, after amnesty laws were struck down. In those, 1,115 peo­ple have been con­vict­ed, accord­ing to the Pub­lic Prosecutor’s Office.

But some Argen­tines, includ­ing rel­a­tives of for­mer mil­i­tary offi­cers, argue that not enough has been done to pros­e­cute crimes com­mit­ted by armed left­ist groups in the 1970s.

“There are vic­tims on both sides, we have to rec­og­nize that,” said one attendee, Clau­dia Ippoli­to.

Orga­niz­ers of the event took pains to empha­size they do not defend the crimes com­mit­ted by the dic­ta­tor­ship.

“We aren’t endors­ing the dic­ta­tor­ship or the trag­ic con­se­quences of that vio­la­tion of the demo­c­ra­t­ic pact. In fact, our group strong­ly and unequiv­o­cal­ly con­demns it,” said Buenos Aires city leg­is­la­tor Lucia Mon­tene­gro, who host­ed the event along­side Vil­laru­el and is also a mem­ber of Milei’s par­ty.

But Alan Iud, a human rights lawyer who has par­tic­i­pat­ed in tri­als relat­ing to dic­ta­tor­ship-era crimes, said it was clear the event was “some­thing more than a sim­ple trib­ute event.”

Iud said there is con­cern among human rights activists that a Milei vic­to­ry in the elec­tion could trans­late into a change in the way dic­ta­tor­ship-era crimes are judged.

“They’re look­ing for sym­me­try regard­ing crimes of state ter­ror­ism and that can­not be con­doned,” Iud said, argu­ing that crimes com­mit­ted by the state can­not be com­pared to those car­ried out by indi­vid­ual groups.

...

“They’re look­ing for sym­me­try regard­ing crimes of state ter­ror­ism and that can­not be con­doned.” Yep. A restro­spec­tive jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for state ter­ror brought to you by the new ‘anar­cho cap­i­tal­ist’ vice pres­i­dent. It’s iron­ic, on one lev­el. And also exact­ly what we should expect, his­tor­i­cal­ly speak­ing. Which is a reminder that, for all the weird­ness of this moment, it’s start­ing to feel alarm­ing­ly famil­iar in the worst way.