That’s a very prudent tortoise. You notice he made that little motion towards the Milei lettuce, checking out his options, then, “naw, Massa.” Hope the Argentinian voters are as careful and thoughtful. 
This.
Personally I don’t hold Massa (too) responsible for the inflation surge, things were going badly- the previous minister resigned somewhat intempestively, and he took the post knowing that it could doom his political ambitions but there was no one else for it.
That said, I don’t blame those who do blame him, I hope they can stomach him, considering the alternative.
One thing that had me puzzled this weekend was that The Economist, usually a sensible newspaper within the bounds of their free trade ideology, is so strongly against Massa that they have publicly stated that they whish Milei to win. And they write that
Patricia Bullrich, the sensible centre-right option, […]
Makes you wonder what is happening to them.
The “sensible centre-right option” just declared that she hopes the country explodes (in the sense of riots and the like, not literally) before November 19th if that’s what it takes to stop Massa from winning…
That is something that concerns me globally – that the heretofore “sensible center-right” in many places claims to be so incredibly terrified of what horrors await over just one more term of even weaksauce socialdemocratic (*) policies that they’re willing to throw their lot with the loons.
( * In the case of Argentina Peronism not being exactly quite the same thing but containing a lot of similar elements, and in both cases having the Welfare State condemned as the Worst Thing to ever happen to mankind)
Sure, and really, Argentina has had a chronically recurring monetary policy problem since living memory – but at least from the outside we haven’t been hearing of things getting like the late 90s/early 00s or back with the hyperinflation of the 80s so it’s kind of puzzling to us older outsiders what’s so different now that would be worth a panicked leap into the void – other than it’s, again, a reflection of the generalized worldwide rise of populist chaos-agent burn-it-all-down political culture.
Well, I can’t speak for all nations, but a lot of the center-right in USA is probably concerned that over the last few years they’ve participated in out-and-out criminal activities, and better to blow the whole thing up than be held accountable if the sensible adults get the majority. Prior to the Hamas invasion of Israel, that was a credible concern for Bibi as well…
They say history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.
And how, Ms Bullrich Luro Pueyrredón belongs to one of the “aristocratic”* families that owned large states in those times and were the only argentinians that benefitted from all that “prosperity”.
Arturo Jauretche an argentinian political thinker born in 1901 called them “Aristocrats who smell of cow dung”
With that name she harkens to a founder family if I’m not mistaken.
Correct.
“Fans of Taylor Swift against LLA” (Milei’s party)
This is not a spritzo: Why the hyperbole? You’re not going to lose your country. We’re just going to fight each other, that’s all. Count me out. I’m a silent radical, most politically in line with people like Jello Biafra, Ralph Nader, Baba Ram Dass, Noam Chomsky, etc. although I’m not in full agreement with any of them. But because I am hard left, I find that my voice is not represented in government. I’m tempering my comments with that in mind.
Don’t forget the country the OP is talking about is Argentina, not the USA. The situation there is at least plausibly rather more dire than it currently is in the USA. Or at least it was when he posted just before the initial round of voting. The worst of the worst suffered some setback in that first round, but the beast is still afoot.
Did you read what I wrote in the OP?. Have you looked at Milei’s politics and platform?
Yes, Argentina will still be there if this madman wins, will the free public education for everyone survive? will healthcare still be free? the openness to receive, educate, heal and cherish immigrants from anywhere?, The support for the arts?, the reproductive freedom? marriage equality?, support for trans people?.
These guys have declared against all that, if they succeed in destroying all that the country I love will cease to exist, even if it’s still called Argentina.
If they win the best case scenario is that they fail on implementing those ideas, but they will surely destroy a lot of them and it’s by no means guaranteed that their successor will have the will or the power to rebuild them.
Polls are unreliable but in aggregate they appear to show a tie, with the last one having Milei ahead by 4 points 
We need to send a commando team to kidnap Nate Silver, force feed him mate and asado until he nationalizes Argentine and put him to work, local prognosticators do not cut the mustard and the uncertainty is killing us.
Yes. That’s why I asked. From my perspective as an outsider looking in it looks like the agenda is destruction of democracy, the same thing we thinking types have accused that former US president of. Far right ideologies exist.
I’m basing this comment on the very real fact that I saw the American propaganda machine being built in the 80’s when Reagan & the FCC scuttled the Fairness Doctrine. They did it to shut up the left, and while we’re still here we’re not going to get coverage in any American version of Pravda. It scuttled my career plans. I would have been a political journalist for the left, further left than Bernie Sanders.
I don’t get your point then, Far right ideologies exist yes, they were in power when I was born in fact, but since 1983 we’ve had a democracy and you can’t blame me for not wanting to lose it and all the other things I mentioned.
The point is that knee-jerking to the absolute worst case scenario isn’t exactly going to help. I dislike Trump, but I do find solace in the number of people who are and always were against what can loosely be called his policies, and work to expose their fallacies. The current fun factoid (warning: possible ironic use) going on right now is that he can’t read, and had to have his memos reduced to sheer hyperbole, the sort that children are great at. One page, and it must be cloaked in competition: if we adopt Policy X we will win.
I’m not knee-jerking, I’m just afraid.