Javier Milei is in a jubilant mood. He has every right to feel good about himself. At home, things are going his way, with inflation beating a retreat, the country’s credit rating improving by the day, and polls saying he remains the most popular politico on the scene. Abroad, his star shines brightly; he is a world-class influencer. Thanks to a wildly successful publicity stunt, he appeals to the large and growing number of people who feel that the countries they live in have lost their way and badly need to be restructured.
Milei’s chainsaw approach to bureaucratic bloat has clearly made an impression on Donald Trump’s incoming administration, in which Elon Musk, with whom he has a warm relationship, is expected to play a major role. In the United Kingdom and much of Europe, voices can be heard saying future governments should do what he does and go full Argentina. With the benefits of economic growth, when any can be detected, getting shared out among a rapidly shrinking number of people, disgruntlement is well on the way to becoming universal. The sour mood that prevails throughout much of the developed world is made worse by the self-satisfied attitudes struck
by those who believe they should be included among the successful. The established elites, all of which are attached in one way or other to the local political “caste” despise the common herd and are despised in their turn by those they look down on. Hoi polloi are getting restive. This is why Trump’s sweeping election victory is being attributed not just to those “pocketbook issues” such as the “price of groceries” Kamala Harris went on and on about but also to a rebellion against the Joe Biden government’s attempt to force people to pay homage to the woke verities involving race and sexual identities that are currently fashion able in academia and parts of the “legacy media.” In the UK, you can be visited by the police if you refuse to take them seriously. In the United States, the FBI would like to know more about you but that is about to change. To please his supporters, Trump has promised to do away with the expensive DEI – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – commissars that in recent years have colonised government departments, universities and business enterprises. To the dismay of the many well-paid guardians of public virtue who are now on the chopping-block, the purge has already begun. Before too long, most will be looking for a new job.
Though Trump has yet to take office, his electoral triumph has had an immediate impact not just in his own country but also in Europe and further afield where it has strengthened those who feel betrayed by the political parties, most of them mildly leftist, progressive or allegedly middle-of the-road, that have ruled the roost for several decades. As in the US, they feel their societies have been greatly harmed by the willingness of the governments they formed to admit millions of unwanted migrants whose customs and ways of thinking are very different from those of the natives. Blaming such sentiments on “racism” and hatred of “the other” worked for a while, but it is no longer enough to stop more and more people complaining. Trump’s promise to deport many millions of illegal immigrants is encouraging Europeans who think their own governments should do much the same.
The recent overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s ferocious dictatorship was quickly followed by demands that the millions of Syrian refugees in Germany and elsewhere return home so they can help rebuild their devastated homeland. It would not be at all surprising if mass deportations soon became the order of the day, not just in the US but also in Europe. Since Trump overcame the odds that had been stacked against him, not only the US Democrats but also the governments of France and Germany are in shellshock as, indeed, is Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour outfit in the UK. The Syrian dictatorship has crumbled, Israel has continued to reshape the Middle East, and in South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol got suspended after astonishing his compatriots by briefly imposing martial law.
Would all this have happened had Kamala won? There is no way of knowing but the mere fact that so much has changed since November 5 makes it look as though Trump’s triumph is having a domino effect that is still in its initial stages. In the coming weeks and months, it seems bound to have a major impact on many countries’ relations with China, the Iranian theocrats’ hold on power, Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine, European military spending and a great deal else.
Strange as it may seem, the mood in Argentina – at least among the many who think that Milei, despite his notorious failings and his often obnoxious behaviour, is on the right track -, appears to be more upbeat than in Europe. This is because it is far easier here to feel that the future is likely to be better than the past than it is in places where, until not that long ago, many assumed that generalised prosperity was within reach and everyone could look forward to a comfortable life.
That pleasant prospect now looks unrealistic, what with war raging on the eastern flank, ethnic and sectarian conflicts multiplying, technological advances favouring some and hurting many more coming almost every week, the consequences of a falling birth rate making themselves felt and an intensifying feeling of purposelessness that is eating away at social cohesion. The challenges facing Argentina after decades of stagnation, educational decline and the impoverishment of millions of men, women and children, may be every bit as daunting as those confronting Europe but they are easier to understand.
What is more, unlike the troubled European countries where many are attracted by the notion that a man wielding a chain saw could help make things better, Argentina has many resources that for years remained virtually untapped: the Vaca Muerta oil and gas deposits, lithium lakes, and minerals that have yet to be mined. They have always been there, but previous governments were unable to take advantage of them because they insisted that only the State, which lacked investment money and was phenomenally corrupt, should be allowed to exploit them. By betting wholeheartedly on private enterprise, Milei has changed all that though, given his economic philosophy, he would surely have preferred to see Argentina boom thanks entirely to the human capital he is determined to set free, not because heavenly forces gave her an outsized share of natural resources.
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