Zurdos de mierda

It isn’t clear whether Javier Milei’s early victories in the realms of politics and economics will endure, but there should be little doubt that a major portion of the “culture war” has already been won from his perspective. 

In all fairness, this social phenomenon — the “new right” — is international in nature, expressing itself throughout Western democracies with different levels of intensity. In places like Brazil, the United States, and Argentina, it has come to dominate a great portion of the socio-political agenda, displacing previous versions of the “polarisation game” that can probably be seen as a prelude to what’s currently happening. Yet, the new culture wars appear to follow in the line of long-lasting social divisions that emerge, time and again, and are adopted by generational leaders with greater or lesser effectiveness. Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, and Javier Milei have accurately read the current zeitgeist, or “spirit of the time,” and skillfully applied disruptive communications strategies that allowed them to overtake their respective political systems and become president. Arguably, what they did was “fight” the culture war.

In Argentina, the term “zurdo” — which translates idiomatically as “lefty” — has taken off, becoming part of everyday language. Whether it is by those who truly believe that anyone who isn’t ideologically aligned with Milei’s version of “the ideals of freedom” is a communist or by those opposed to the anarcho-libertarian administration in an ironic, satirical fashion, it has permeated culturally to become part of how Argentines speak. It is humorous to hear the term being employed in everyday circumstances essentially to mockingly insult someone, particularly if there is a way to connect the situation being referred to with the idea that someone, such as a business, is trying to extract undue benefit at the expense of the rest. Genealogically, it is related to the concept of “caste,” through which Milei and his libertarian horde managed to synthesise the idea of a group of leeches, living at the expense of everyone else, and which allowed him to point the finger at anyone he considered toxic: politicians, journalists, performers, even retirees and the public university system. 

Language is viral, particularly in hyper-connected urban societies, and is particularly sticky among the youth. Indeed, language is probably the first frontier in trying to permeate the consciousness of a population, and therefore the frontline of the culture war.

The fact that Milei’s concept of “zurdo” has permeated to the point where it has become part of everyday language speaks to his sector’s capacity to adapt and manipulate public perceptions. It doesn’t seem possible to determine deductively whether Milei and his star political advisor, Santiago Caputo, are a cause or a consequence of the current communications success, yet it is impressive the way in which they have read the “social climate,” and crafted a series of strategies that have captured the imagination of a third of the population, convinced another quarter to back them in the run-off, and ultimately secured them the presidency.

Disillusionment with the system feeding pent up anger appears as a common condition for the rise of “new right” leaders in Western democracies, while globalisation and interconnectedness (particularly through digital platforms) has allowed an international counter-cultural movement to consolidate in response to the “lefty” experience. 

In Argentina, the Kirchnerite era laid the foundations for a political response in the form of Mauricio Macri and his Cambiemos coalition in 2015. Nearly a decade and a half of increasingly authoritarian policies, together with the exhaustion of an economic model that began to expulse the wealthy youth while vacating the present of opportunity, generated the conditions for a defeat of the “third Kirchnerism,” led by Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Her administration also led a successful culture war against its political enemies. She accused the agricultural sector of trying to destabilise her administration during the “farm crisis” of 2008, and the media of being corrupt and representing interests opposed to the “national and popular cause.” She was successful in unmasking the myth of journalism as “objective,” particularly in her battle with the Grupo Clarín media empire, in great part by correctly interpreting the postmodern concept of post-truth. Kirchnerism damagingly latched on to noble causes, particularly human rights, bastardising social leaders for political and economic gain. Ultimately, they were pushed out of office by a growing social group who was tired of their abuses of power and flagrant corruption, and while they remain a substantial political force, they will never return to hegemony. Not even within the Peronist camp. In overtaking the pan-Peronist Frente de Todos front, which included Fernández de Kirchner, and their standard antagonists, Macri, Milei and his anarcho-libertarians managed to win one of the major battles of today’s culture war. 

Macri accurately described it at a recent conference, in which he noted that society understood what kind of leader they had picked, with a peculiar “psychology” and a “destructive mandate.” Having seduced a third of the population, their concepts, and their underlying connotations, will endure. Ideas like “zurdos” and “casta” have taken on a life of their own, particularly among the youth who will grow into the next generation of middle aged and older people in the coming decades. They will have an engrained distaste for the institutions of democracy, and democracy itself, a raging anti-Kirchnerite feeling, and an empty ideology that is enshrined in Milei’s conception of the “principles of freedom,” that ultimately has to do with hating anything that sounds or smells like “zurdos.”

Milei, Sister Karina (aka presidential chief-of-staff Karina Milei), “Kremlin Magician” Caputo — the members of the “iron triangle” — are already dreaming of an anarcho-libertarian hegemony stretching out through at least two mandates. They imagine a prosperous Argentina where their economic successes will guarantee them political victories and a tighter grip on power. In his anonymous accounts on social media platform X, Caputo ponders an Imperial system with Milei wielding unlimited power. The Kirchners imagined this too, and so did Carlos Menem before them. Argentine society isn’t fond of blindly following leaders, nor does it like monarchs.