Javier Milei Wages War on Argentina s Government | The New Yorker
Milei, who is fifty-four, came late to politics. Before he won a seat in Congress, in 2021, he was a low-profile economist, and then a frequent guest on talk shows, famous for explosive denunciations of the government. Argentina, after a century of economic struggles, was in crisis. As Milei campaigned for President, the inflation rate climbed to more than two hundred per cent, and roughly forty per cent of the population was living in poverty. Milei earned a following by blaming the trouble on a corrupt caste la casta that included politicians, journalists, trade unionists, and academics.
The solution, he argued, was a drastic reduction in the scope of government. He once declared, The state is the pedophile in the kindergarten, with the children chained up and slathered in Vaseline. He has vowed to abolish the Argentinean peso in favor of the U.S. dollar, suggested blowing up the country s Central Bank, and advocated a market so unconstrained that it would permit trade in human organs. He carried around a chainsaw, with which he said he would cut away the fat and corruption of la casta. During the campaign, he stood at a bulletin board hung with the names of government ministries, then ripped them off one at a time, yelling, Afuera! Out!
An unsympathetic portrait by the New Yorker.