Hold up Argentina is a real country?
You know it's just kind of funny to see Americans suddenly care about what happens on the global stage. Used to be no one cared about any of this stuff, but now more and more seem to be trickling in from the edges.
Why is that?
The simpler question is to any why anyone pays attention to anything. When events tend to not have an affect on our personal lives, those events are much more easily ignored. However, we are now slowly crawling towards a more borderless and connected age. Hopefully an Age of Enlightenment, but I offer no promises in this regard.
Who is Javier Milei?
Well according to the Internet he is the "far-right" president elect of Argentina. Apparently he won the election just yesterday and people are losing their collective minds over it. Too be fair the guy is quite the character. He's clearly completely unhinged and manic.
But is he far-right?
Well we'd have no way of knowing now would we? Liberal media outlets only use the term 'far-right' when describing literally everyone who doesn't lean left. Please show me a single time in the last 2 years that anyone was referred to as simply "right-wing" and not "far-right". You'll be hard pressed I'm sure. I saw just the other day that Wikipedia labeled Elon Musk as a "far-right conspiracy theorist". I mean okay sure he's a troll and has said some crazy shit, but also it just seems a bit disingenuous to throw these labels out like candy.
New York Times Article
Argentina’s next president is a libertarian economist whose brash style and embrace of conspiracy theories has parallels with those of Donald J. Trump.
Oh okay so he's a libertarian
That's cool I guess. I mean how often does a libertarian win the presidency? The problem? The article uses the term "far-right" four times. What a surprise.
If we bust out our handy dandy Nolan chart we can see that being libertarian and being far-right at the same time is actually exceedingly difficult to achieve. Why? Because being libertarian means taking power away from the state. How can one enforce conservative policies with the state if they are actively seeking to take power from it? So while it is true that most libertarians lean slightly-right it is a pretty grand exaggeration to call that a 'far-right' victory. At the end of the day this is simply the narrative that sells when it comes to mainstream news.
a lurch to the right for a nation struggling under an economic crisis and a sign of the enduring strength of the global far right.
Go woke go broke?
I mean if we are being honest with ourselves this was obviously bound to happen sooner or later. Over the last political cycle the left has pushed very hard. That type of momentum can do nothing but rubber-band snapback into the opposite direction. We have front row seats to a worldwide political "flippening". Remember Italy's Giorgia Meloni? Yep, she was just the first of a long line of "far-right" leaders to take power within the current ecosystem. Honestly I think we can expect this situation to escalate over the next few years.
Mr. Milei, 53, an economist and former television personality with little political experience, burst onto the traditionally closed Argentine political scene with a brash style, an embrace of conspiracy theories and a series of extreme proposals that he says are needed to upend a broken economy and government.
Political Backlash
You know it's bad when TV personalities continue to win elections. People are simply so disillusioned with the state of the world and the economy at large that they seem to be willing to try anything to fix it. Will they be able to? That is yet to be seen, but there are some interesting outliers when it comes to this story.
First of all he's an Austrian economist.
This basically runs diametrically opposed to more traditional Keynesian economics.
In fact, Milei is making downright outrageous claims as to the path forward.
- He wants to abolish the central bank.
- He wants to adopt USD as legal tender.
- He's a strong advocate of Bitcoin.
Of course many of us over here in crypto land would scoff at replacing one central bank for another, but at the same time this entire situation gives off strong El Salvador vibes.
What we need to understand is that the Argentine Peso has lost 90% of it's value against the dollar over the last 5 years. Imagine that. Imagine complaining about paying 30% more for something when people in Argentina have to pay that 30% in addition to 1000% on top. It's just absurd. Of course it would be better if they just abolished the central bank and started using dollars and Bitcoin. That's a massive upgrade across every metric.
He has also proposed banning abortion, loosening regulations on guns and considering only countries that want to “fight against socialism” as Argentina’s allies, often naming the United States and Israel as examples.
Again, none of this screams "far-right"
Loosening gun control, imposing traditional family values, and and rolling back women's rights are pretty standard and normal right-wing platforms. He will also be labeled as "controlled opposition" for supporting USA and Israel, so that's a fun addition to the whole situation. Although he's probably just a little bit early to the party considering I can't imagine Biden being able to win another term next year.
That's ironically some pretty liberal translation, friend.
Somehow I doubt there's a direct translation between Spanish and English that equates to "leftard" but what do I know. Still, this clips shows just how much hateful backlash has been brewing in the background. Yes, it is very toxic, but more importantly that toxicity is resonating, replicated, celebrated, and being parroted on social media.
We must accept that this is the current state of the world. People are struggling. They are angry, and that anger is being channeled onto a perceived enemy. Of course the real enemy is the state itself, no matter who is in power, but politicians are always going to politician. Never let a good catharsis go to waste.
In his victory speech, he attacked the political “caste” that he says has enriched themselves at the expense of average Argentines, saying “today is the end to Argentine decadence.”
Extreme "drain the swamp" vibes.
Perhaps the comparison to Trump is not that far off.
Still, some political analysts say that Mr. Milei’s ascent reflects many Argentines’ desperation for change rather than support for his ideology.
Probably accurate
Milei is a loud and aggressive maniac.
The people seem to be tired of smooth-talking politicians who walk the line.
Not hard to see why crypto Twitter is obsessed with this guy.
I mean let's be honest we are not a tough crowd to please.
He likes Bitcoin we love this guy!
Mr. Milei has embraced the comparisons to Mr. Trump and Mr. Bolsonaro. He has clear differences with the two other politicians, including his strong adherence to a libertarian ideology that has led him to support, in theory, policies like open immigration and drug decriminalization. But Mr. Milei’s political style resembles theirs in many ways. He harshly attacks his critics and the news media, he calls the scientific consensus on climate change a socialist plot, he argues that a shadowy cabal controls the country and he even has an unruly hairdo that has become an online meme.
Again, a lot of these talking points run strong within crypto as well, which is why his message is being so aggressively amplified within the space.
Conclusion
Javier Milei is a bit of a lunatic. He waves around a chainsaw at pep rallies to represent the cuts he will deliver to the government (taxes, central bank, etc.). Is it a good thing he was elected as the president of Argentina? I don't know... it might be a better plot for a movie than anything else. After all, he likely doesn't have enough political support within the government to actually make the changes he's promised. The simulation continues.
What I can say is that a happenstance such as this is almost certainly a small victory for crypto as a whole. We now have another loud voice from a small country screaming at the top of their lungs about the central banker scam and the promise of Bitcoin. Even if he's a dictator in training this is still a silver lining for the rest of the world. I guess we'll see how it goes. Argentina is now situated firmly on the crypto map. Pretty weird.
