He’s a serious threat insofar as there is one in the left, it remains to be seen if once the madness comes to it’s natural end (if it ever does) the voting public will decide that the problem was that Milei was mad and not that he was a far-right ideologue, and just goes with some more sane-looking slightly less openly far-right candidate.
As for being better, he’s probably the best alternative among the (IMHO) dismal field of possible alternatives (but I’m a pessimist).
Pros:
- Squeaky clean (which is extremely rare among Argentinian politicians).
- Progressive
- Charismatic.
Cons:
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Didn’t had a very good run as economy minister in a previous peronist government.
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Is currently pushing a bondoogle of a reform on primary and secondary education (he’s the governor of Buenos Aires province) that’s openly hated by all teachers.
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No Buenos Aires governor was ever elected president (one was president but only afer 4 previous office holders resigned in a week during the 2001 crisis), legends about a native-american curse notwithstanding this is probably because all the other provinces are very much not fond of “porteños” (even if we told them that porteños are the inhabitants of the CITY of Buenos Aires which is outside the province, with as much luck as an alabaman would have trying to explain here that he’s not a ‘Yankee’)
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Milei’s currently trying to economically asfixiate the province to hobble his chances.
All in all, he may very well end up being president someday, his heart is in the right place, I just hope his political abilities measure up to the difficult task before him, both on winning the presidency and in using it effectively.