This time The principle of revelation left President Javier Milei exposed, and doubly so. On one hand, drug violence in its terrorist aspect erased in one fell swoop the optimism with which Milei summarized his successes in the fight against organized drug crime in Rosario‘ class=”com-link” data-reactroot=””>organized drug crime in Rosario just ten days ago, March 1st, in the opening speech of legislative sessions: “In Rosario, intentional homicide on public roads in areas controlled by federal forces was reduced by almost 60 percent in two months,” he had said. Today Rosario and the country are dismayed by the escalation of murders of “innocents”, as the drug traffickers themselves classify the chosen victims.
In the other side, Milei’s anti-caste identity, central to her political vision, was the victim of a self-inflicted error: she was bruised by the presidential authorization to increase her salary and that of her ministers and secretaries of State by 48%. She had to turn back. The episode became a kind of parable of the hunted hunter. The revelation of the punished anti-caste.
Governing a very complex reality like that of Argentina presents that risk: that reality prevails over any cultural battle that is sought to be waged. And may the battle for common sense fail to mask the implacable consequences of the deepest and most difficult structural problems that Milei swears he can solve. For example, drug insecurity and inflation.
Two months of government is nothing, but the anxiety to show effectiveness on all fronts ends up being confused with strategic successism: today’s positive result may be questioned the following week. In the Rosario issue, the moment of truth reached Milei with his revelations: this time, the design of the board that exposed the nature and interests of the different players did not remain in the strategic orbit of the President and the men and women. his trusted women. On the contrary, it remained in the hands of narcoterrorism, which He marked the field with total cruelty for everyoneto the people, of course, but above all to Milei and her Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrichand also to the governor Maximiliano Pullaro.
The world is flat and today it seems to be milleist, but not so much: that is the point. The image of Bukele that Governor Pullaro released less than a week ago on social networks showed the scope of that premise, when the unthinkable happened: Milei’s most politically incorrect idols, the Bukele method in that case, even reached the shores of the republicanism of a radical “socialist” governor., according to the accusations of the libertarian forces. “You are going to have a worse time every time,” was Pullaro’s message to a scene of almost naked prisoners, kneeling, handcuffed and tightly guarded by security forces dressed and equipped to the teeth. The message could have been posted by Milei, but it was the radical Pullaro.
From the Bukele-style Pullaro of today to the Pullaro of the past, Minister of Security of the socialist government of Santa Fe, headed by the then governor, Miguel Lifschitzor to Pullaro who supported the consensualism of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta inside Together for Change, quite a journey: Pullaro’s open combat against drug traffickers in Rosario had never before reached such a graphic dimension. Today’s bukelized Pullaro not only appears aligned with the milleista policy of a strong hand against drug trafficking, but also willing to display the symbols that best represent it.
However, The reality of Rosario has just shown the existence of a structural problem that cannot be resolved only with the flag of the iron fist.it does not matter if raised by Milei’s libertarian excess or by Pullaro’s right-thinking “radical-socialism.”
Two clarifications. On the one hand, there is no doubt that the change in the governorship of Santa Fe and in the presidency of the Nation brought a regime change in Rosario: in addition to inflation and security, the fight against drug trafficking is at the center of Milei and Bullrich’s promises. The differences with the previous administration are fact: exactly a year ago, the people of Rosario convened themselves at the Flag Monument to draw the attention of politics and society to the wave of murders that that city experienced in the first months of 2023. That same day, February 22, the then president Alberto Fernández was in Antarcticaoblivious to the slogan that described the drug drama: “Rosario bleeds.”
How was it possible that the political correctness of guaranteeism led to the legitimization of the iron fist and its public representation, not only by Milei, but also by political forces less friendly to that discourse? Part of the answer is in the permissiveness or indifference of Kirchnerism. On that platform, what was inadmissible for Kirchnerism and dilemmatic for Macrism or the Milei radicals became acceptable.
On the other hand, Milei wove his self-praise before the Legislative Assembly based on a certain fact: the decrease in homicides registered in Rosario when the first months of 2023 are compared with those of 2024, which coincide with the beginning of his presidency. While in January and February 2023 there were 46 intentional homicides in Rosario, in the same two months of this year there were 24, a drop of 47%. Across the city, and not just in areas controlled by federal forces, intentional homicides on public roads fell by 57%. These are official data from the Ministry of National Security.
These certain data encouraged the Government to read hastily today about the success of its anti-drug policy: The number of homicides, which seemed like a positive fact, is replaced by an increase in the audacity of the terrorist drug strategywhich now speaks as an equal to political power, and in the institutionalization of “the innocent” as the new category of drug target.
There are no easy solutions, the lesson seems to be. Given the evidence of the level of difficulty of the topic, any advertised shortcut turns out to be, rather, political marketing. Ephemeral victories: just for a post by X that is denied the next day. At times, politics is enough with that. But in the longest curve of the processes the horizon is more difficult to foresee.
In Rosario, taxi drivers, drivers, beachgoers, ordinary workers become the archetype of victims: they suffer the onslaught of the economic crisis and inflation and, also, the most extreme cruelty of insecurity. A reality from which the bubble of the “political caste” is preserved for the moment or strives to avoid at all costs.
At the level of security, political leaders achieve police, and even military, protection for their families that the average citizen is far from achieving. The cases of Pullaro’s family or María Eugenia Vidal and her family, who moved to a military base during her years as governor, are an example. To save themselves, Rosario residents only have to lock themselves in their homes and stop daily life.. At the level of the economic crisis, the Executive’s salary increases, so questioned, are an example of political power serving itself.
In the case of the salaries of the “red circle” of the Casa Rosada, inflation and its effects ended up playing a trick on them and left Milei exposed. None of the possible interpretations makes it stand out. Or they show him signing without reading. Or they exhibit their government’s lack of cohesion around the idea of necessary sacrifice. Or they expose it in its reflection of political caste in spite of itself. The efforts to detach oneself from that decision escalated to the ridiculous: a level of extravagance that elicits, at the very least, an ironic smile. To find a scapegoat that would not touch the figures he trusted who were compromised in that decree, the Chief of Staff, Nicolás Posse, and the Minister Sandra Pettovello, Milei had to take out of the closet a Secretary of State, the Secretary of Labor. , with at least six degrees of separation, from that decision.
Cristina Kirchner captured the meaning of the moment not because she is accompanied by reason: her responsibility in the endemic economic crisis and her millionaire retirement complicate her value judgments. But she found the tone to criticize Milei for the salary issue: she did not take it seriously, but she exposed it. A duel of excesses in which the former vice president understood that Milei’s political power hangs on a key thread: the power of the intangible. In that episode, the power of irony became his political weapon.
The long march of libertarian Argentina has already begun. Faced with dramas like those experienced by Rosario, Milei’s tactics in the world of the intangible and virtual can work against him. The question is whether Milei will manage to remain the asbestos president that he pretends to be. And that he is obliged to be.
Themes
Other political news
“There is sizzling.” Governors Torres and Llaryora ratified their support for the May Pact, although with reservations
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/lanacionar/JLJ3AJB3QVG7BAZUAXXUZXYXLQ.jpg)
Rosario. The warning from the director of Human Rights Watch: “Bullrich’s promise of wanting to imitate Bukele is useless”
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/lanacionar/GW2O4VHEJZDORBRL7BEMWCRPGU.jpg)