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August 14, 2023

In Argentina, an electoral blowout for a libertarian shocks the left

By Monica Showalter

After bringing crime, corruption, and 116% inflation, Argentina's ruling Peronist leftists held elections, beginning with yesterday's all-party primary.

They didn't like what happened next.

According to Reuters:

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 13 (Reuters) — Argentine voters punished the country's two main political forces in a primary election on Sunday, pushing a rock-singing libertarian outsider candidate into first place in a huge shake-up in the race towards presidential elections in October.

With some 90% of ballots counted, far-right libertarian economist Javier Milei had 30.5% of the vote, far higher than predicted, with the main conservative opposition bloc behind on 28% and the ruling Peronist coalition in third place on 27%.

The result is a stinging rebuke to the center-left Peronist coalition and the main Together for Change conservative opposition bloc with inflation at 116% and a cost-of-living crisis leaving four in 10 people in poverty.

"We are the true opposition," Milei said in a bullish speech after the results. "A different Argentina is impossible with the same old things that have always failed."

The electoral map looked like this — and the primaries there are considered a "dress rehearsal" for the general election two months from now in October.  Massa is from the ruling leftist party, Bullrich is from a center-right party, and Mifei is the outsider full-blown libertarian:

And while the Wall Street Journal, the AP, and Reuters attempt to brand him as "a far-right extremist," here's what they consider extremist:

And worst of all:

The Argentinian press are so freaked out that they've pulled out the "literally Hitler" card:

As for the political class, Argentina's most powerful leftist politician, Vice President Cristina Fernández, laid down her marker with this, which has become the meme of the year:

Translation: "If Mifei wins, I'll shoot myself."

Well.

Kind of gives you the scope of the freakout.

What's stunning here is that Mifei is the real deal.  When I write about the right in Latin America, I usually have to qualify it with "what passes for" when describing the conservative side of the equation.

Not this guy.

Mifei wants to kill inflation dead with dollarization, which forces governments to live within their means whether they like it or not, because they cannot print money.  That automatically reduces the size and scope of government.  Once that's done, a nation become surprisingly stable, as the example of longtime dollarized Panama demonstrates.  Even Ecuador, which is subject to banana-republic political dynamics, has never gone off the edge entirely, as Venezuela has done, because of its relatively recent history of having a dollarized economy.  That has enraged the left.

He wants gun ownership, an end to wokester education in schools around the promotion of the LGBT agenda, an end to climate hysteria, and no more greenie garbage.  Most terrifying to the left, he admires President Trump.

What's happened here was that Argentines were utterly fed up with the monster inflation rate that destroyed their savings and knew that the ordinary right was not going to cut it.  They went for the radical now, electing Mifei, and don't think for one minute that other fed-up nations — looking at you, Chile and Colombia — won't follow suit.  Perhaps even Ecuador, now that a conservative-leaning candidate was assassinated last week and there's an even more conservativee one waiting in the wings.  Perhaps even Brazil, given that the ruling leftists have succeeded in barring Brazil's version of Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, from running for president again for eight years.  Some are fearful of an assassination now, given the left's rage.  But most, especially in the beleaguered cities outside Buenos Aires — Rosario, Santa Cruz, Córdoba, San Juan — are cheering wildly.

This is the great reaction to unfettered, unchecked leftism, which has left these countries in ruins.  That the Argentines have the gumption to swing back instead of just vote for more of it, the way San Francisco's voters do, tells us a lot about how angry they were — and Argentines can get very angry indeed on politics, having been there — and how ready they were for change.   As that World Cup victory this year demonstrated, they know how to act in consensus.

This was the political World Cup.

This is also a great sign for us here in the States, that years of leftist Democrat mismanagement has a voter tipping point.  Perhaps that pendulum will swing as far here.  Already I can feel it.

Image: Twitter screen shot.

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