NOWHERE TO RETREAT: MILEI, TRUMP AND THE HOPES OF DESTROYED NATIONS
There’s no question that the meteoric rise of Javier Milei in Argentina mirrors the rise of Donald Trump in the United States. Channeling his past life as the singer of an indie rock band, Milei’s bombastic attitude, rockstar-style entries to rallies and demonstrations, and his theatrical use of a chainsaw all have an undeniably Trumpian tone. But the situation of Argentina itself is above all a warning. As Bronze Age Pervert recently put it, Argentina is “a nation competing with Venezuela when, given its natural endowments as well as its human capital, it should be competing with the United States.”

How did things get this bad? Since the return of democracy in 1983, Argentina has been governed mainly by Peronist governments. Peronism is the “national-populist” ideology of Juan Perón, first emerging in the late ’40s and refusing to die to this day. Its “nationalistic” face never obstructed its commitment to a policy of social justice, a term used by Perón himself since 1946. After the economic collapse of 2001, Argentina welcomed the 21st century with a new Peronist political dynasty in charge: the Kirchners.

Today, Argentina is a country that combines the worst aspects of European-style and Latin American-style progressivism. Half of the population lives under the poverty line, and mafias, drug cartels, and nepotism thrives on every level of government. At the same time, the political discourse is relentlessly driven by media and education toward themes of gay marriage, abortion and transgenderism.

Both sides of the issue were exacerbated during the Covid pandemic. Argentina applied one of the most draconian pandemic regimes in the West, with police forces murdering one person every 20 hours in 2020 alone. Lockdowns ended gradually in 2021, but provinces governed by Peronists continued to demand masking deep into 2022. The effect of these years has seen inflation entering high Earth orbit and psychological health declining to a state resembling mass clinical depression. Especially in Buenos Aires, one can tell at a mere glance that the people are weary and resigned.