Javier Milei’s landslide victory in Argentina’s Presidential runoff election is a historic moment for conservatives worldwide, hailed by the likes of Trump, Bolsonaro, Orbán and so many others.
But in the MSM – as you would expect – there was a widespread wave of outrage.
“Far-right’, ‘Authoritarian’, and all the usual ‘bad names’ were applied. His election was called an irresponsible adventure by frustrated voters doomed to disastrous outcomes.
But now the level-headed, right-thinking news vehicles are starting to bring a more balanced and intelligent view of the historic event that marks a significant moment in the rise of pro-market, popular conservatism.
The article ‘Argentina’s chainsaw-wielding president-elect is a libertarian’s dream‘, by Mark Littlewood on British Telegraph, proposes the view that ‘Argentinian voters decided that the fruit being offered to them by the political elite was so rotten that they may as well upend the entire applecart’.
“Milei has not run on a reformist platform, instead he is promising a revolution. He is not offering short-term succor, but a full-blown overhaul of government to alter Argentina’s long-term trajectory. The public has voted for intensive surgery rather than palliative care.
His policy agenda makes a Thatcher or Reagan manifesto look like a mere tweak on a spreadsheet. Vast swathes of government departments will be closed, the central bank is to be shuttered and the country may abandon the peso in favor of the US dollar. State spending will be slashed. Milei has hardly made a secret of this – wielding a chainsaw above his head was a frequent feature of his campaign rallies.
To try and grasp the scale of Argentina’s woes, you could look at the problems afflicting much of the West and simply dial them up to the maximum. If stubborn inflation here has fueled a cost of living crisis, imagine the impact of prices increasing by nearly 150 percent every year. We may be swimming in debt, Argentina is drowning it. Our state infrastructure is creaking, inefficient, and pitifully wasteful; Argentina’s is in meltdown. Crony capitalism is a blight and affliction on our economy, over there, it’s a full-blown cancer.”
Milei is part of a global trend in which variations of popular conservatism are on the rise.
“In sections of the legacy media, this phenomenon is variously explained as the rise of the far right or by the observation that every nation now possesses its own version of Donald Trump. This is not merely over-simplified, it is wildly inaccurate. The Trump comparisons often amount to little more than noting that a politician exhibits an idiosyncratic hairstyle. What appears to be happening across the democratic world is that social democratic and statist structures – which have been the prevailing norm for decades – have reached breaking point and the electorate is noticing.”
Central banks have been on an insane money-printing spree of fiat currency. Taxes on historically high levels and unhinged state spending produce tragic results.
“Sizable chunks of the population are now latching themselves to mavericks who are broadly supportive of a market economy, deeply skeptical about the ability of a sprawling government system to address economic and social concerns and are focused on the key tasks that the state surely should be able to manage – such as the control of borders.”
Milei only has limited representation in the legislature and the mega-powerful vested interests ranged against him are scary to the max.
Sky News Australia had an interesting segment called Socialist ‘post-election meltdown’ in Argentina has been ‘enormous’:
Excerpts of what Rita Panahi and Kosha Gada said:
Rita Panahi: A huge development in Argentina which has just elected a president that is conservative. He’s a libertarian. He is vehemently anti Marxist, anti woke.
Javier Milei has been called far right. He’s been called an extremist and his rise to power has triggered all the usual lefties who’ve well, they haven’t been this disturbed since Georgia Meloni was elected as Italy’s leader.
Kosha Gada: I think Argentina is one of the biggest cautionary tales of our time of how rapidly that decline happened from prosperity to those numbers that you cite right now.
He’s an unconventional candidate in many ways, ways. He’s got the hair, he’s a TV host, He says kind of things that are beyond, you know, what’s conventionally said. He’s a bit eccentric but the thing is: conventional candidates – look where it’s gotten them [Argentina].
The hosts played some clips of Milei to portray his fiery style.
Rita Panahi: He said in that interview, ‘if you give the left an inch, they will use it to destroy you’, ‘you can’t negotiate with leftards’. That’s a direct quote.
He also said ‘Since they can’t beat us with real arguments, they use the repressive apparatus of the state to destroy us’.
It bears noting the careful analysis by the two journalists.
Rita Panahi: He’s been dubbed the Argentinian Trump. Can he turn the ship around? People are predicting chaos, economic collapse. All the things we heard when Trump was elected in 2016, care to make a prediction?
Kosha Gada: He definitely has his work cut out for him. And I think, when things have gone so far off the deep end – It’s gonna take drastic measures.
American conservative media also had something to say in the matter, with Jon Miltimore writing ‘What we can learn from Javier Milei’s victory — and Argentina’s ruinous economy’ for the Washington Enquirer:
“However one chooses to describe Milei, it’s clear his rise marks a total rejection of Argentina’s political establishment after years of economic pain.
The poverty rate in Argentina is above 40%. Inflation, meanwhile, has been in the triple digits all year, and it continues to rise. Argentina, the second-largest economy in South America, has battled inflation for decades, but inflation has spiraled out of control in recent years.”
This image shows why Javier Milei is Argentina’s new president.
The government destroyed the currency and 40% of the people are now in poverty. pic.twitter.com/1WpVOVcSRT
— Jon Miltimore (@miltimore79) November 20, 2023
“Americans who think they have little to learn from this spiraling South American country should realize that Argentina was once one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
Historians point out that just before the beginning of World War I, Argentina was richer than the primary European powers, Germany and France, and almost twice as wealthy as Spain. Its per-capita gross domestic product was on par with that of Canada, and up until the Great Depression, it was one of the largest exporters of food in the world.”
Read more:
The post After the Liberal Meltdown, Conservative Media Has Some Intelligent Takes on Javier Milei’s Historic Election in Argentina appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.