2024-01-15 15:35:12
In workplaces, factories and schools, many colleagues wonder how the majority of people could have voted for someone like Javier Milei. How could he have won who openly says that he wants to make a tremendous adjustment, defends the last Military Dictatorship and declares that he will attack fundamental rights?
This causes indignation and anger to flourish. But we cannot just let ourselves be carried away by that when analyzing reality. To better face the announced adjustment, it is necessary to understand where this phenomenon came from and how it came to power.
For that we have to start from a few years ago. Alberto Fernández managed to win the presidency in the first round in 2019. Mauricio Macri’s adjustment took away workers’ salaries, we suffered layoffs in droves, poverty reached 36%. There was repression, persecution, prisoners, even deaths like Rafael Nahuel and Santiago Maldonado.
The day after Macri lost, in many factories there was an atmosphere of celebration and joy for Macri’s defeat.
The illusion was short-lived
A few months later, the pandemic arrived. Alberto Fernández’s popularity was at a historic peak. The first weeks of quarantine were passed with very few infections and deaths.
But soon, the Government began to authorize the activity of different industries. Most people went back to work, although it was not essential. He was exposed to the virus and the infections grew.
People went to work and were exposed to the virus, but they were still locked up at home. At the same time inflation was growing and salaries were not increasing.
Layoffs had been prohibited, but businessmen like Paolo Rocca of Techint laid off anyway, and nothing happened to them. The Vicentín cereal company was on the verge of bankruptcy and in debt to the State. The Government threatened to expropriate it, but backed down.
Feeding the snake
And so it continued. The Government agreed with the IMF to pay the loan that Macri took, so criticized and denounced, even stating that it was illegal. And in addition, he continued to pay the previous fraudulent Public Debt, although he lamented about the negative consequences of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Not only did the economic situation not improve for workers, but there was an enormous deterioration in our salaries and working conditions. More than half of the country’s workers are informal, poverty has reached 40% and inflation does not let up.
All of this gave ground for Milei, who was already a recurring guest on several television shows, to gain ground. He presented himself as an “anti-system” who hated the “caste” of politicians. An economist who proposed ideas that seemed novel and contrary to what had been done with Macri and Alberto. This allowed him to garner the support of an entire sector that was disappointed with the Government and with politics in general. In this way, he was able to gain followers, get many votes, reach the second round and, with the support of Macri, win the elections.
With this, he built an ideological discourse that questioned the missing, attacked the rights of women and the LGBTI+ community, and even questioned global warming.
Not all those who voted for him adopted that speech in its entirety. But there was a sector that did. The one who offered them a “different” solution on an economic level also gave them an explanation on an ideological level as to why we are the way we are, accusing the “political caste.” And that explanation seduced, above all, many young people who do not enjoy even the minimum rights that are in danger.
Let’s draw the necessary conclusions
You cannot govern for workers and businessmen at the same time. In some times of economic prosperity, certain measures may be allowed that benefit workers without harming employers too much. This was the case, for example, during the Government of Néstor Kirchner, benefiting from high prices for “commodities” such as soybeans, and also with suspended payments of the External Debt, an achievement of the massive rebellion of 2001.
But when the crisis worsens, it is more difficult to hide the reality. And it is revealed that Peronism has chosen to govern for businessmen. He chose the IMF, he chose Techint, Vicentín. And so he paved the way for Milei and his entire band of serial deniers and adjusters.
We must also mention the responsibility of the left, which instead of presenting itself as an anti-system alternative, shows itself increasingly attached to the parliamentary system of the “political caste”, without proposing a truly revolutionary solution, which organizes workers’ self-defense against the State repression, or organizing the unemployed to demand food from supermarkets and meatpackers, for example. Therefore, to break the cycle of adjusting governments, it is a fundamental task to build a revolutionary alternative that puts workers in power.
#Peronism #lose