What does Javier Milei’s win in Argentina mean to America? (Juan P. Villasmil, November 20, 2023, The Spectator)
Argentina’s major ill is inflation, not a shrinking manufacturing base or tremendous levels of immigration. He emerges as an antidote to a unique illness.
The US media has fixated on his opposition to state-funded sexual education and his pro-life position, but in reality, Milei’s election cannot be wholly understood through the lens of cultural preservation. He rose to prominence lambasting subsidies, taxes and tariffs. While a growing faction of the European and US right distances itself from the small-government-rocks consensus, Milei embraced it. He’s a self-described anarcho-capitalist who became a star for deriding statism. He’s more Ronald Reagan than Viktor Orbán, more Milton Friedman than Pat Buchanan.
For these reasons, it’s somewhat comical that many of the “let’s use state power to punish our enemies” folks in the US have celebrated Milei’s rise as if he were one of them.