Argentine President Javier Milei, ‘Long live freedom, damnit.’
"Socialism Whacked"
by Bill Bonner
Baltimore, Maryland - "Looking out at the vast universe of politics, we see dead, black...empty...and cold...space. But a closer look reveals two flickering stars – one burning much brighter after last Sunday’s election.
Here at home, Tom Massie is holding his ground against the richest and most powerful groups in the country. Ed Gallrein, his new opponent, a former Navy Seal, hasn’t put forward any real policies or platform ideas of his own. Instead, his promise to voters is that he will be a rubber stamp to the president, and do whatever Trump tells him to do. Gallrein: “This district is Trump Country. The President doesn’t need obstacles in Congress - he needs backup. I’ll defeat Thomas Massie, stand shoulder to shoulder with President Trump, and deliver the America First results Kentuckians voted for.”
But that brings us to the second bright spot, Javier Milei, and the curious “America First results” that Kentuckians didn’t vote for. Whatever else can be said about unorthodox Argentine chief, his star is rising. The BBC: "Argentina’s Milei wins big in midterms with ‘chainsaw’ austerity. Argentina’s president Javier Milei has led his party to a landslide victory in Sunday’s midterm elections, after defining the first two years of his presidency with radical spending cuts and free-market reforms. His party, La Libertad Avanza, won nearly 41% of the vote, taking 13 of 24 Senate seats and 64 of the 127 lower-house seats that were contested."
His gains will make it much easier for the president to push ahead with his program to slash state spending and deregulate the economy. Before the vote, Milei’s ally Donald Trump made it clear that the US’s recently announced $40bn lifeline for Argentina would depend on Milei keeping political momentum. Milei’s supporters welcomed that, though critics accused Donald Trump of foreign interference in Argentina’s elections.
Bailouts at home may be bad policy, but at least they are understandably part of the America First program. Few Kentuckians probably realized that in voting for Trump they would get a bailout – of a foreign country. And that instead of protecting their soybean and beef prices, the president would open them to more competition.
And talk about election interference! Trump told the Argentines that he was ready to give them a line of credit worth $40 billion - but only if they voted for his candidate, Milei. He even gave the Argentine president a photo op in the White House, referring to him as his ‘favorite president.’ Using US taxpayer money to influence any election is remarkable enough. The CIA and other spookish agencies have been doing it for decades...but never right out in the open; maybe it is a sign of progress that instead of assassinations, coups and blackmail, the feds are using bribery to get the regimes they want.
But that brings us to another remarkable thing: Why does Trump want Milei? “I’m with this man because his philosophy is correct, and he may win it. He may not win, but I think he’s going to win. And if he wins, we’re staying with him. And if he doesn’t win, we’re gone.”
But if Milei’s philosophy is correct, Trump’s philosophy must be wrong - because they are opposites. The soft-headed press describes Milei as a ‘right winger.’ Perhaps Trump believes it. But the real story is more likely that a Republican fixer, Barry Bennett, and a New York billionaire, Rob Citrone, figured out a way to make some money by getting Trump to back the peso. When the announcement was made, millions or billions of dollars suddenly changed owners.
Milei is neither a right-winger nor a left-winger; he is a doctrinaire libertarian. Unlike Trump, he’s not a Big Man leader; he’s a Big Idea leader. And his idea is basically the one embedded in the US Constitution, now forgotten, that the government that governs best is the one that governs least. The Argentine president is doing what no other head of state is doing...and something, as far as we know, that has never, ever been done at all. He aims to govern less.
Occasionally, but more and more rarely, a politician such as Massie wishes to follow the Constitution, limiting his own power, and letting people get on with their own lives. More often, both ‘left’ and ‘right’ converge to seek a bigger and bigger share of the nation’s output for what Milei calls the ‘casta politica.’ In this sense, Trump is a classic. He has expanded the role of the federal government perhaps more than any other president in this century. Trade, immigration, crime, disease, education, foreign policy - never before have we had such an activist in the White House.
Milei, meanwhile, is doing something different. He’s cutting budgets, trimming employees, and chopping off unnecessary bureaucratic appendages. He’s been in office for a little shy of two years. During that time, he’s reduced inflation by about 90% and cut the budget deficit by 100%. Argentina has climbed out of its almost permanent recession to have the fastest growing economy in the Americas, with GDP growth more than twice that of the US. Real wages have tripled. And poverty has been cut by 40%. And this week, after winning the mid-term elections, Milei’s star burns brighter than ever. He has passed the first test. He whacked the government with a chainsaw, as promised. The voters did not revolt; they applauded. Stay tuned."
