There’s nowhere to go but up!
Or over and off the side of the Flat Earth…
Particularly ironic for someone from the Global South. (To paraphrase a classic Mafalda strip, wouldn’t that mean you guys are hanging upside down?)
We are, and thus the ideas fall down from our brains and we vote this kinda of people into power…
The last decade or so has been feeling seriously like the Feast of Fools every damn day. Except that most people don’t realize it’s cute, possibly even healthy for a single day, and disastrous as a way of life.
Update: The administration has guaranteed funding for the University of Buenos Aires but not the others, a win? an (rather too likely to succeed) attempt to “divide and conquer”?.
Dude will not rest until everything that made us proud is gone, I think:
https://www.science.org/content/article/spending-cuts-imperil-argentina-s-ambitious-nuclear-research-programs
He’s really into the “Make International Moneylenders Imperial” (sorry, best I could do on short notice to parody MAGA) isn’t he?
Cut everything that doesn’t go into the pockets of himself and his key cronies (IMHO), try to bribe elements of opposition into compliance, and then (equally IMHO) get plenty of international support while, as @Frodo said, gutting everything that makes his nation the nation it is.
I mean, it looks like a fast track to a Russia clone, ruled by a few oligarchs who are almost untouchable with the worst aspects of both capitalism and command economies.
It’s kinder than “masomenos abortar ganancias argentinas”, I suppose.
Which, for anyone not able to check with Google Translate:
“more or less abort Argentine profits”
Now I have no idea if that is an accurate translation, or is missing a lot of nuance (I suspect it is) - but at least it keeps the MAGA anacronym intact!
Ganancias also means earnings. I’m sure Frodo could come up with something better than I did.
Milei is making friends in Spain. Among the fascist, of course.
For context: Milei has visited Spain invited by Vox, the fascist party that is hoping to gain votes and seats in the upcoming European Parliament election. He spoke at a Vox rally in Spain, where he insulted several politicians and their families and friends. It was not an official visit, so he did not visit the King nor the Prime Minister or the Foreign Minister. But he is very proud of owning the Libs or something like that, I guess. Or, as he put it on Xitter himself:
“HELLO EVERYONE! THE LION IS BACK, SURFING ON A WAVE OF SOCIALIST TEARS. LONG LIVE FREEDOM, DAMN IT!”
Classy. Wonder what the Argentine media make of this and whether it is registered at all. The Spanish media are divided: the right wing press is busy criticising Spain’s government, the left wing press is doing the exact opposite.
Argentina media seems to be critical of Milei’s idiocy, the grade of vitriol in the criticism is proportional to the right->left position of the specific media entity.
Pagina 12 (lefty newspaper) front page says it all:
“Very frank”
My personal opinion is that Milei is beginning to unravel, he never was very stable but he seems to be getting more and more unhinged, may be the pressure of the job is getting to him?.
You’re much more in the know that I will likely be.
I suspect that like Trump, he suffers from the desire to be seen to be be seen as important but like Trump he doesn’t want to do any of the boring parts of the job. Making concessions, building alliances, finding ways to make his grand (and shortsighted) plans work in a real world where he isn’t playing SIM-Argentina and can use cheat codes.
I also suspect that, again, like Trump, when things aren’t working the way he wants, he’s run to the comforting cheers of like-minded fellows to get the adulation hit while ignoring reality.
Agree, but as time goes by (we’re just about 6 months on a 4 year term) he seems to be acting crazier and crazier, and as of yet none of the inevitable crises of a government term have happened.
What will happen to this man if inflation starts to rise again? if there is a run on the peso (there seems to be a beginning of one as I write this, yesterday morning the rate was 1100 pesos/ 1 dollar, today it’s 1250)?
All governments have a bad month or so (at the very least!), but until now all governments were headed by sane adults, may be corrupt and/or incompetent but adults.
I’m terrified of the possibilities, but the least harmful one I can think of is that he throws a tantrum, claims that everyone is against him, and decides to take his ball and go home, IE quit.
Which I’m sure would create a massive spiraling effect on internal and international confidence, making any economic issues balloon out of control.
Sadly, that’s the best case scenario IMHO in the circumstances you mention.
I think instead he’ll start getting rid of people who disagree with him, by means fair and foul, if nothing more than firing anyone who contradicts him until the government is well and fully gutted, and continue to break anything he doesn’t understand (which appears to be nearly everything) until he finally leaves in disgust.
But right now I don’t see him making it to the end of his 4 year term, based on the results to date…
I agree with this, quit and live of his celebrity with the more insane parts of the global right (so the old Sarah Palin gambit).
Even that “least harmful” option would leave the presidency on the hands of Victoria Villaruel, the VP, a known apologist of the last military dictatorship, we may end up missing the times when the president was pretty evil but at least incompetent, instead of extremely evil and less incompetent 
And today the Guardian publishes this about Milei:
What can you say? (Generic “you”, but also asking Frodo, in case he has the stamina to analize this new turn of crazy.)
There is little to say, just hope this madman does destroy everything.
I hope those who voted for him but are otherwise rational and sensible see this as the moment when they realize their mistake, if they hadn’t before.
Ana Eugenia Clemente, a 33-year-old Venezuelan actor, clutched Milei’s new book as she exalted Argentina’s entertainer-in-chief. “I feel a deep hatred for the evil left that damaged my country and feel Milei is a person who has come to save not only Argentina, but the world,” she enthused.
I guess crazy is the same wherever you go.
doesn’t* destroy everything, too late too edit.