A little piece of heaven

It would be equally easy to overrate or underestimate the launch of Las Fuerzas de Cielo (“the forces of heaven” or “armed branch” or “praetorian guard” of the libertarian movement or whatever they might call themselves) in San Miguel last weekend. Facile comparisons with Nazi rallies were immediately made but Leni Riefenstahl it was not – a few tacky banners evoking AS Roma team colours rather more than the glories of an ancient empire and a handful of zealots trying to compensate for their extremely poor oratorical skills with bursts of violent and/or coarse language. Libertarian they are also not as any comparison with the erudite articles of the ultra-liberal economist and intellectual Alberto Benegas Lynch (father of the rather less polished La Libertad Avanza deputy nicknamed Bertie) will immediately show. Yet if this tawdry event is placed in a wider context, the focus on it becomes more justified.

In a week with the Roman-born Italian premier Giorgia Meloni in town, one way of placing Las Fuerzas de Cielo in perspective would be to point out that their self-definition of praetorian guard started life in Ancient Rome as just six elite bodyguards (although growing to nine cohorts in imperial times). Just as the praetorian guard was thus a miniscule atom in a vast empire, so the launch of these libertarian shock troops was but one of various seismic movements in this jacaranda month of November, starting on its first Tuesday with the election of Donald Trump in the United States.

Drawing less media attention than the stunts in San Miguel but perhaps more decisive was President Javier Milei explicitly banishing Vice-President Victoria Villarruel from his circle of trust. Especially because his phrasing of this rupture goes beyond an all too familiar rift between president and veep, almost a constant in Argentine history. Not content with rejecting Villlarruel as too close to the “caste,” he went one further in describing her as also being too close to the “círculo rojo” establishment, a term inextricably linked to ex-president Mauricio Macri. Latent in the repudiation of Villarruel is thus also a rejection of Macri and the PRO centre-right party he chairs, a virtual announcement that the road to midterm victory next year lies in crushing this alternative rather than in any alliance.

Emboldened both politically and economically by Trump’s triumph as confirmation of a global trend (with Meloni a further example, however diluted her far right ideology by pragmatism) and by some highly positive economic indicators including a dramatically shrinking country risk, Milei would seem to be going for broke. Any breach with Macri would make the PRO stronghold of this city his main target but only three million citizens of this metropolis inhabit the Federal Capital – a further 11 million live in the Greater Buenos Aires outskirts and that is where the San Miguel goons fit in. Their pitch is clearly aimed at the lumpenproletariat vote traditionally accruing to Peronism and Kirchnerism, placing the Austrian school of economics to one side.

The extremist tendencies of a rampant government will have been further encouraged by the impotence of the moderate opposition in mustering a quorum in Congress last Wednesday. On this occasion they were resisting Kirchnerism via their ‘ficha limpia’ bill barring convicted persons from running in elections (with the corruption conviction of ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner upheld only the previous Wednesday) but attempts to limit rule by decree or to override presidential vetoes have proved equally futile in a Congress where the moderate opposition parties carry infinitely more weight than in opinion polls.

If the San Miguel launch can also be seen as bidding for Buenos Aires Province candidacies next year with the “soldiers” seeking to become colonels, such jostling may become a test for La Libertad Avanza next year but unlikely to worry them unduly. While a chaotic movement has suffered numerous defections (including half Milei’s original Cabinet) with some ex-loyalists becoming embittered enemies, this may not hurt them any more than it has Donald Trump. The “iron triangle” of the Milei siblings and spin doctor Santiago Caputo disciplines with an iron hand – Milei may have come not to herd lambs but to awaken lions yet has far more of the former than the latter.

From strength to strength but the Roman paraphernalia of San Miguel might be balanced by the reflections of the Roman philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius on power: “As emperor I am limited by the frontiers of my domain; as a human being I belong to the universe.”