by Carlos Caso-Rosendi

Special Correspondent for FromRome.Info

Buenas Aires, Argentina — Nov. 20, 2023: Yesterday, Argentina elected Javier Milei to be President of the Republic for the next four years. The man entered the political realm only two years ago. Mr. Milei is what in other, more normal times we would have called “an eccentric” of sorts. These days, even with all his eccentricities, he may pass for a pretty normal guy in comparison with some characters walking the streets of Buenos Aires but that’s neither here not there.

Milei’s spiritual mentor is his sister who like many other nominally Catholic Argentines delves in practices like Tarot. Javier Milei himself admits to the practice of Tantric sex, alludes to certain Jewish spiritual disciplines in his conversation and keeps the Sabbath in spite of his nominally Catholic roots.

Milei’s ascension coincides with the decline of Peronism. To understand Javier Milei it is necessary to understand Peronism, a movement that was born along with Germany’s Nazism, Italy’s Fascism, and Spain’s own version of Fascism born of the ideas of Primo de Rivera and Francisco Franco. Juan Perón founded his own version or Nationalsozialismus and named it Justicialism. Far from being a well defined political philosophy, Justicialism has been politically everything under the sun since 1946.

Those who do not like Peronism say that the movement is simply “a criminal association seeking to acquire political power to ransack the nation’s Treasury and riches” —lacking a coherent political or philosophical definition I consider that explanation  quite correct and adjusted to reality.

Juan Perón installed some ideas in Argentina that are diametrically opposed to the ideas preached by Javier Milei. Perón and all those who followed Peronism, basically believed that the prosperous Argentina of the past was too involved in international commerce, exporting too much, and holding too much foreign capital. Combatting the influence of foreign capital has always been one of the battle cries of Peronism. Needless to say those ideas have been a complete fracas.

Javier Milei’s credo is basically the same of the Austrian sages such as Ludwig Von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, et al. Extolling the commonsensical approaches to economy of the Austrians and others like George Stigler, Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell, Mr. Milei was able to appeal to the young voters of Argentina by preaching the economic gospel of Austrian economics. The old generations were displaced by the young vote that now comprise 30% of the electorate and went to Milei almost entirely. For those young ones, Perón and Evita are two slightly ridiculous, vociferating old persons shouting from ancient newsreels. That did it for Milei. The other candidates spoke the old Peronist ambiguities while Milei spoke some common sense.

In this the second round of the election Peronism was massacred. There was no need to wait until the end of the vote count to surrender the flag. With 90% of the votes counted Milei was miles ahead of Sergio Massa, a disastrously inefficient minister of economy. Massa was the best Peronism had to offer. A blatant defamation of Milei’s character was all they could come up with as a campaign. A laughable effort from a party plagued by corruption scandals of all kinds. The Peronist gambit had a boomerang effect. A day after, Peronism is still laying unconscious, victim of its own campaign.

The man Milei has managed to defeat the political system, appropriating some of the most decent forces that want to dismantle the Peronist machine of oppression that has grown since 1946 when Perón appeared in the political scene. After reaching a 50% poverty rate and considering the daily sight of a country in ruins, it may begin to enter the Argentine mind that perhaps Peronism was not the best thing to happen to the country. That is the point that Milei has to drive home. I doubt he is able to achieve that.

Milei knows a lot about economic theory but he is a bit of a simpleton in practically every other field. He is no exception in the intellectually lackluster local political class. Eight decades of a Peronist controlled education system leaves serious sequels. Milei is in the process of abandoning the Catholic faith for what I would call Jewish mysticism. That betrays a serious lack of philosophical coherence and a serious ignorance of the faith in which he was born. Again, he is not alone there, that is the state of the Catholic laity that the Church hierarchy surrendered long ago without a fight.

Having considered all that, Milei is more a product of the Argentine intellectual decline that delivered the economic, cultural, and social deterioration we see today. Milei will have to grow by leaps and bounds to serve his country well.  Perhaps he should consider the words of Jesus in John 15:5 if he plans to achieve anything at all. Even the best intentions come to nothing without Christ.