Posted on 07/23/2024 7:49:17 AM PDT by Eleutheria5
Javier Milei’s triumph in the first round of the Argentine elections last year—the first of three that make up our tortuous process of electing a president—provoked not just shock, but confusion. Immediately, WhatsApp threads were bursting with different versions of the same question: Was he “far right”? Or was he something more bizarre—the first libertarian candidate in the world with a chance to win? The question was—and is—far from foolish. Milei presented himself as a central part of a new right-wing international, expressing solidarity with world leaders like Donald Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. Everyone was happy then: The global right had a new idol in the Global South to celebrate, and the left had a new mini-Trump to combat. In an era of flat politics and memes turned into presidents, that would seem to be enough.
But things aren’t that simple.
The category of “far right” suffers the same fate as the concept of neoliberalism—both are ideas that, in their effort to explain everything, end up explaining practically nothing. This isn’t just a problem for analysts and scholars: It is an eminently political challenge with practical implications. In Argentina, much of the progressive intellectual elite—most of them ideological supporters of Kirchnerism, the center-left formation that governed for 16 of the last 20 years in Argentina—prefers to think that Milei came from outer space, an alien virus that arrived from abroad and ended up contaminating the minds and souls of a vulnerable nation. Milei’s personal eccentricity, of course, helps: An alien who talks to dead dogs, straight out of a Phillip K. Dick novel, surely can’t be a standard for anything. At this point, the concept of “far right” is a way to close the debate, rather than open it...
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(Excerpt) Read more at compactmag.com ...
Evita remains my favorite musical and I love Argentine food!
Trump can get along with any leader willing to play ball. He got along better with Mexican Pres. Obrador than with many stubborn establishment Republicans in our own country…
Bring back the Tango.
Looks like Milei has out-flamboyant-ed him, so he best not try to one-up him, and instead talk business.
The Argentine voters had a Howard Beale moment..... “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not taking it anymore!”
I hate musicals other than The Wizard of Oz and the original Producer. And I eat everything and like it. But Argentina was, for about a year or two, a special area of interest for me.
Carter created Reagan. Obama gave us Trump.
The pendulum swings but it appears we let it swing too far left when it’s our turn.
He lost me in the third paragraph. I follow Argentine results daily. The Peronists are falling apart, and the populace is willing to give Milei a chance. Thus far he has proved to be an adept politican with good policies although the leader of a minority party. United States investors (oil pipeline being the most recent) have lined up.
The Peronists will make a come back after Milei’s presidency. New York City is back to its old self after the end of the Golden Age by Mayor Rudy.
That was after an eight-year “caretaker” mayoralty by Bloomberg, who was no Giuliani, and then Wilhelm the fake Italian for eight years. Next thing you know, there’s Covid, Floyd riots, Soros DAs, high crime, and the city is back to its stem cell horridness.
Bloomberg did a good job. He was liberal. But he kept going the momentum that Rudy had in NYC. After Bloomberg, that was when everything fell apart.
He did a good job on crime. Maybe he also did the budget ok. But he was an anti-smoking Nazi and even worse on gun control, as if New York City wasn’t bad enough already.
He was a New Yorker. Bloomberg is the best you can get.
P.S., after Floyd riots in '20, every American city smells like skunk now. Cops are doing nothing to enforce it. There should be a public nuisance law. Apparently not.
He was not Giuliani. As a caretaker on crime and fiscal responsibility, he was ok. Giuliani was great! He turned the city around from a tailspin.
Of course not.
NYC electing Rudy is like Milei winning in Argentina. They were desperate enough to do it.
Milei so far is a better showman, and he says the right words. We’ll see if he fulfills that Obiwan roll. Trump definitely did and will. Giuliani did, but he’s out to pasture now.
Nicely put!
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