The eccentric far-right populist Javier Milei has failed to win the first round of Argentina’s presidential election, with the centrist finance minister Sergio Massa unexpectedly beating his radical challenger.
Supporters of Milei, a potty-mouthed political outsider described as an Argentinian mashup of Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Boris Johnson, had hoped he was heading for a sensational outright victory similar to Bolsonaro’s shock triumph in Brazil in 2018.
Comparing Milei to Trump or Bolsonaro is very, very misleading.
Milei is has radical capitalist / free market ideology, but is far removed from social conservatism.
Just to give you an idea, he wants to close the argentinian central bank and kill the national currency or let it kill itself with a free floating exchange rate.
Such a move is the opposite of what alt-right / fascism would do which seeks governmental control of media, industrial and financial institutions.
If anything, the current ruling party “Union for the motherland” (Union por la patria) openly advocates and defends Peronism which is a sort of decaf fascist ideology heavy in nationalism and populism thinly clothed in laborist rethoric to make it seem left wing. Current ruling party which btw has lead the country to over 300% inflation (if you take the free exchange rate as a reference since the official exchange rate is manipulated and it is illegal for argentines to freely buy foreign currency except for a small token amount).
Just to make it easier to understand. If you’re familiar with the political compass:
These are three very very different quadrants.
Whats His opinion on abortion and crime?
On abortion it looks like he opposes it outside of cases where the mother’s life is in danger. On crime his wiki is pretty vague just that he wants to ‘crack down’ on crime and prohibit migrants with a criminal history from entry.
Let me put it better for you, he wants to ban abortion and he wants to let people form vigilante mobs to take care of crime and bring back the dictatorship, which he is keen on whitewashing
The lame thing is if that wasn’t his main social policies I would understand his voters a lot more.
So he’s a social conservative?
I know nothing about economy, but isn’t a bad idea to put all your chips into a currency that you do not hold any control over?
As Vis mentioned, it is the better option if the government can’t stop itself from printing money and fucks everyone over.
This is the inflation rate of Ecuador before and after they adopted the dollar in 2000.
Milei now wants to do the same. At least this way people will be able to save (and spend their savings), and the government will have to be fiscally responsible.
The world has run directly or indirectly on gold (which can’t be printed) until 1973, so it’s definitely possible for an economy to work with a currency you can’t print.
we have problems with governments over printing. this shit has happened again and again for decades and it won’t stop.
Yes, but the alternative is what we have now.
A few nations of this: Ecuador, El Salvador, East Timor, Zimbabwe, etc
Milei probably has a small resemblance with DT. Maybe just a small percentage, but that is enough to call him a Full DT by the press in the rest of world. It is just cheap press.
The guy has a lot of cons and pros. But he is not a DT. He is mainly an economist. Not a businessman.
Argentina as always is a sinking ship with a lot of holes. Every year there are more holes. They still have not found a party that can close those holes. And there were only 3 big parties.
Perhaps a new party (like the one from Milei) manages to start closing some of those holes. Perhaps they keep opening holes like the current party. Even if you put the best party ever made, it would take 15-30 years maybe more to recover. You have a lot of adults that never worked (legally) and live from the state. It takes time to educate the new generations letting them know that money is not always a free thing that comes without working. (And you cannot tell them “now you have to find a job” in the short term otherwise the country will go violent. Therefore no matter how far right the party is. It always end up adapting to a situation to control the masses that requires socialism).
Time will tell about what will happen if the same party (probably was the worst government in the past 30 years) wins the election. But nowadays the country is at worst since I was born. 40% poverty (oficial, real is perhaps higher ), 100+% annual inflation (not even the old 20-30% annual). It is probable that the current government will never leave and will stay on power just like it happens in many other countries, like Venezuela. (While it is still a totally different country, we always compare to Venezuela because the current party always liked Venezuela as a role model to follow).
I hope not! But with 40+% poverty… soon there will not be enough tax payers to cover the costs but maybe hyperinflation puts a stop to the excess of public spending (printing ARS money) to solve any problem.
Well, I’d say it’s just their straightforwardness and their “showmanlike” attitude
Are there even politicians in Argentina that aren’t socially conservative? He is by default
Far-right is when I don’t like, idiot