In just a few short years, Argentine President Javier Milei has achieved the previously unthinkable: turning around his country’s moribund economy, crippled by decades of Peronist socialism. Argentines go to the polls in October. Naturally, the international mainstream media are going into full attack mode.
After all, Milei, like Margaret Thatcher in the UK, is exposing, yet again, the (literal) poverty of socialism. The MSM can never forgive that.
In 1900, the Argentine economy was one of the richest in the world. Its GDP per capita was 80 per cent of the USA’s. Then came the post-war period and Juan Peron. Under his self-proclaimed brand of socialism, the Argentine economy and currency went into freefall. Before Milei came to power, GDP-per-capita was just 25 per cent of the US. “The Argentine peso today is worth about one forty-seven-trillionth of what it was worth in 1940, compared to the US dollar,” wrote Forbes in 2018. “Hyperinflation is a sad fact of life there.”
Not any more. After peaking at over 200 per cent shortly after Milei’s election, this year it is down to 36 per cent – and falling further.
Here come the MSM attacks.
Argentina’s firebrand right-wing President Javier Milei has largely tamed runaway inflation with a ruthless austerity plan and he aims to solidify power when his party and its allies take on a divided opposition in legislative elections in October.
The trash-tweeting, shaggy-haired economist, who famously handed tech billionaire Elon Musk a chainsaw at an event in Washington earlier this year, has overseen a steady dollar-peso peg but relies on legislative allies in Congress to pass his agenda. Many of the changes he has implemented have been through presidential decrees, like his ideological ally, US President Donald Trump, who called Milei his favorite president.
As also did Joe Biden (162), Barack Obama (276), and Bill Clinton (364). The presidential record goes to Democrat icon FDR (3721). Funny how the MSM neglect to mention that, instead plumping for yet more Orange Man Bad misleading reporting.
Misleading reporting like this:
Nearly 40% of Argentines remain in poverty, and many of them reject Milei’s policies.
“I'm not a Peronist, but I’ll vote for them because I’d vote for anyone before Milei,” said Jorge, a 42-year-old “cartonero” who collects cardboard for recycling, an extremely poor living.
“Many of them”. Name them, as Thatcher famously said to George Negus.
Because they’re apparently in the minority, as the MSM concedes deeper in its hit piece.
Up for grabs in the election is the vast province surrounding the capital, Buenos Aires, which is the geographic heart of Peronism and home to 40% of the country’s voters. A government source told reporters Milei has vowed to defeat Peronist Governor Axel Kicillof there.
Milei’s candidate unexpectedly placed first in a recent Buenos Aires local election, and consulting firm Observatorio Electoral shows Milei’s Libertad Avanza party with a slim 37%-36% advantage over the center-left Peronists. Nationally, 42% of voters favor Milei against 23% for the Peronists […]
“I'll vote for Milei again because he’s achieved a degree of normality in the economy,” said Federico Segovia, a 22-year-old university student who blamed the last Peronist president, Alberto Fernandez, for leaving the economy in disastrous shape. A recent survey by the consulting firm Synopsis found that the share of those who viewed Milei positively rose to 43.4% in May from 40.9% in April.
At stake in the elections is the chance for Milei to pursue his reform agenda without being held back by the Peronists who did so much to wreck the country.
The Peronists make up the largest party in Congress and have dozens of governors and mayors across the country. Observatorio Electoral pollster Julio Burdman, however, thinks that power base won’t be enough to stop Milei’s forces. “The ruling party has all the conditions” to win the most votes, he said. “I can’t imagine any other result” […]
Voters will choose about half the seats in the lower chamber of Argentina’s Congress and a third of the upper Senate on October 26. A big victory would not give Milei a legislative majority, but it would offer him leverage to make deals to sell off government-owned companies, cut social spending, change tax and labor policy and embrace social conservatism.
Still, pollsters who make certain predictions are the bane of any politician. Yesterday’s poll favourite is all-too-often tomorrow’s loser.
But, after emerging triumphant from recent local government elections, and with Argentina’s economy on a once-unthinkable rebound, Milei has plenty of grounds for confidence.
