Front Burner - Meet ‘Chainsaw Man’, Argentina’s new president

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

Known as “Chainsaw Man”, “El Loco” and “The Wig”, Argentina’s new far-right president is a controversial economist that’s often compared to Donald Trump. And he’s promised to slash government, kill the central bank and ditch the national currency. So, who is Javier Milei? How did the self-described libertarian manage to win? And what does his presidency mean for Argentina’s devastating economic crisis? Buenos Aires-based freelance journalist Natalie Alcoba explains. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Damon Fairless. That's Javier Mille with a chainsaw, surrounded by supporters, and they are stoked. The Chainsaw Man, as he's known, is also known as El Loco and the Donald Trump of Argentina. He's a controversial economist

and a former media pundit with a collection of cloned dogs. He's a self-described libertarian with radical far-right views and he's soon to be Argentina's next president. The chainsaw, a symbol of how he plans to carve up Argentina's government and its economy in the middle of its worst economic crisis in decades. Today, we're asking how this political outsider rode to victory on promises of extreme government cuts, privatization

of state companies, and the end of Argentina's central bank and its currency. Natalie Alcoba is a freelance journalist based in Buenos Aires, and she's here with me now to talk about it. Hey, Natalie, it's great to have you on the show. It's great to be here. Thank you. I've been reading about Javier Millet for a couple months now in the lead up to this election. And I mean, he's a lot. I guess I want to start this off by trying to get a better understanding of who he is. So we know he's a self-professed libertarian.

He's a political outsider. He's defeated the ruling party candidate to win. But beyond that, can you kind of give me a sense of what he's about? What's he known for? I mean, he came on, he came on the scene a few years ago, essentially as like a political pundit. He's an economist who, you know, was given a lot of space on some of the big primetime television shows and became known for his unvarnished attacks on government policies. You know, really outlandish statements. At that time, he was quite critical of policies of the right-wing government of Mauricio Macri. And then there's the aspects of him that are just kind of Y el sexo tántrico, ¿seguís? Sí. Él dirigió una banda de cover de Rolling Stones. ¿Te escuché una vez que hablabas de eso? ¿Practicabas? Sí, claro, fui profesor. his best strategist. He was elected. You know, he he'll have these incredible episodes on television where he'll take to like smashing

a pinata of the central bank live. He's just prone to these like larger than life, wild scenes that, you know, kind of just keep feeding the media in Argentina and have created all this this incredible fodder that that has been building for years, really. But then during the campaign trail, we've seen it all kind of come back to the fore. And he's got these nicknames, right? El Loco and The Wig. Exactly.

Yeah. I mean, and there's this look. He has this look about him, right? Like this disheveled hair that, yes, earned him the nickname The Wig. hair that yes earned him uh the nickname of the wig you know he's often like wearing like a leather a black leather jacket um in fact actually he's got these like thick sideburns and one of um you know the person who kind of like dealt with his image at one point in his campaign says that he was made to look like the Wolverine comic character. I think I got to say the thing that really stands out about him are his dogs.

And as you mentioned, they're clones, but they're also named after right-leaning economists, including Friedman. And he's also got one named Conan, right? Yeah, exactly. Conan is like the prized possession. And Conan is a clone of the original, his original Conan. They're English Mastiff dogs, they're huge. And so he calls Conan his child. And then the other four dogs, which are also clones of the original, are his grandchildren. Yes, named for conservative economists. So there are videos of Millet dressed up in a superhero costume,

performing as an alter ego he calls General ANCAP, which is anarcho-capitalist. And so that's him singing about Argentina overspending and then going to the central bank for more money. So I've been hearing a lot about this ideology, ANCAP ideology, libertarianism. Can you describe Millet's ideology for us? Yeah, I mean, I think essentially he believes that the government should be intervening in the lives of its citizens as little as possible. I mean, he even today, I mean, it's stuff that he's been reaffirming on the campaign trail. But today, again, you know, it was like, we're going to privatize everything that we can. He believes in the rights of the

individual and the rights of private property and that the free market should reign and the problems of society will be solved by market forces. Now, in terms of what that also means, practically speaking, I mean, he's already, he's given notice, and he talked about this in his campaign, in his intention is to cut spending, public spending by 15%. He wants to privatize, you know, state companies, both the large energy company, public radio, public television, scientific bodies. He's talked about changing the way public health care and public education works, although he has since softened that a bit. But this is the direction that he's going for, and he's certainly made, he's made, he's been very clear about that.

One of the big things he ran on, right, was in addition to privatizing all the stuff you mentioned, but totally scrapping the central bank, bringing in the US dollar as the national currency, getting rid of the peso. And I guess beyond the kind of financial ideologies he brings, what are his social policies like, his thoughts on social issues? Yeah. So, I mean, there's no question that the economic policies are the ones that have dominated the campaign trail and that really have attracted most people. But he's gone into a lot of other social spheres. So in particular, you know, talking about in Argentina a couple of years ago, legalized elective abortion. It was a trailblazer in the region on that front. And he personally is against

legal abortion and has talked about how he would want to put that to a referendum in order to reverse that. How that would happen, it's not entirely clear. It was not something that was in his campaign, in his platform, but people that will be part of his government are already talking about how they want to make that a priority. So that's a real thing. He's talked about, this was in his platform, loosening gun laws, you know, on climate change. He doesn't believe that humans are to blame for climate change on education and healthcare care. Again, he kind of reinforces this idea that these are services that have a particular value and someone is paying for

them. And education in particular, his main idea was to switch public education to a voucher-based system so that people have the freedom to pick where it was that they were going to school, they would get their education. I mean, of course, in Argentina as well, universities are, there are publicly funded universities. So there's, the university is free can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here.

You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income. That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So Natalie, that's Millet in a nutshell,

but let's take a step back and talk about what's been happening in Argentina that kind of set the stage for his presidency. What do people need to know about the state of the economy right now? Yes, it has been a very difficult few years. Boom and bust cycles, kind of defined by that over the last few decades. But this is I'd say this is one of one of the worst ones. And it's it's marked in particular by an alarmingly high rate of inflation. An economic crisis worsening by the day, Argentina becoming unaffordable for essentially its whole population. There's no one reason for all of this, but a major problem is that Argentina's government spends more money than it has.

This creates deficits. Annual inflation here is clocking over 140%, which is the third worst in the world after Venezuela and after Lebanon. and after Lebanon. I mean, it's not just the number, but also the speed at which inflation changes. At the start of 2020, around the pandemic, inflation was around 40%. Like I said, now it's at 140%. You know, there are particular moments of political or economic volatility that send it just kind of spiking. And you'll have these weeks where you can really feel that. Merchants don't know what price to put on certain things. They won't sell you it until things stabilize. It's obviously a topic that dominates

all sorts of conversation in the media. Alongside that, poverty has been extremely high for a long time. It's around 40%. And also that the value of its peso has crumbled. I mean, it's a very disorienting condition to live under. So along with these economic problems you've been talking about, there's also this growing frustration with the political system there. And, you know, we can't get into everything,

obviously, but can you just give me a sense of what do we need to understand from a historical context here? Yes, it is. It is. It's good that we're not getting into all of it. I mean, ultimately, like Argentina is a deeply politically polarized country that has lived through devastating periods of military rule where human rights were eviscerated and the economy deregulated. A life sentence for 85-year-old Jorge Rafael Videla. The former dictator oversaw the bloodiest years of Argentina's infamous dirty war against suspected left-wing activists. A just war against subversion, he says, in which as many as 30,000 Argentines were detained, tortured and disappeared. These last 40 years of democracy have been marked by strong swings, both political swings and economic swings.

I mean, there's this movement in Argentina called Peronismo that's named for a former president, General Juan Domingo Perón. Peronism was born in the mid-1940s with the rise to prominence of the then-Employment Secretary Juan Domingo Perón. He went on to become president three times, backed by his charismatic second wife, Evita. They've both been dead for a long time, but the movement that bears their name lives on. He built this movement largely around ideas around the working class, but it's also a shape-shifting political force. Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's left wing. I mean, its fingerprints are all over Argentina in the last few decades. The country has also lived through hyperinflation in the 1980s. In the 1990s, it was this neoliberal decade of, again, privatization. A lot of

echoes to what we're seeing right now, the government trying to deal with that astronomical inflation by pegging the local currency to the dollar, which again is something similar to what Milé is talking about. But that project ended in ruin. The banking system collapsed. People lost their life savings. The government defaulted on international debt. All trust in the financial system obliterated,

which of course feeds into the government's ability to also collect taxes because people don't trust the system or their leaders. You know, there have been, there have been, you know, since that last crash of 2001, there have been moments of recovery and some of that was helped by a global commodities boom. And it also brought more protectionist policies and the government, a more left wing government, you know, expanded the welfare state that helped a lot of poor people, raised their quality of life. But those conditions really didn't last. And it's been this deterioration over the last 10, 12 years. this deterioration over the last 10, 12 years. You know, a right wing government in the middle of that took out massive amounts of debt that put another like stranglehold on what it was that the government could do.

And so inflation was climbing, inflation was climbing, and then the pandemic hits, which of course, you know, worsened everything. But all of this is just mostly to highlight that it's been this exhausting roller coaster ride for Argentines and who, you know, are constantly kind of feeling like they're in this perpetual, I mean, short-lived moments of calm and then crisis again. And so all of that kind of sets the stage for what's happened now. Right. And it sounds like that's led to this appetite for something different, which is precisely what Millais has.

You know, that's how he's positioned himself, right, as this outsider, as this anti-establishment guy. But I'm curious, you know, who's his base? Who does he appeal to the most there? Yeah. I mean, I think one of the most important things about Millet is that he appeals to a cross section of people. I mean, we talk a lot and a lot of attention has been paid to, you know, the youth that have turned to him. And, and that's absolutely true. A lot of young people who became kind of, having discovered these TikTok videos, these clips of this guy who was like railing against like a system that they also thought isn't working. Ministry of Culture, outside!

Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development. Then they in turn have become kind of like evangelists for these ideas and have gone about and convinced their family, their friends to vote for him as well. But he appeals beyond just young people. He appeals to people in the conservative establishment, to right wingers. He appeals to people who have more money, those who come from poor parts of the country who, again, haven't seen, you know, their lives, their lot in life really, really changed. Individuals who traditionally voted for the left, for the left. And you'll often come across, people tell you that it's not really about his ideas. It's that he's

a different face, a different voice. And he's really tapped into this notion that, you know, voice and he's really tapped into this notion that Argentines keep electing the same cast of characters and that's why we're in in this mess. I support Javier Millet because I need a change. I want a change for my country that I deeply love and we've been suffering many years of decadence. I think this time Argentina needed a change and that's why I bet on this new proposal. We are doing really bad as a country, and I hope Millet does not disappoint us. Of course, you know, that message that doesn't stand up under scrutiny, because he's now since aligned himself with members of that same establishment.

But he was successful in delivering that message, that the political cast, as he often talks about them, is to blame for all of our problems. Okay. So I'm curious because you're in Buenos Aires, once the news broke that he beat his opponent by nearly 3 million votes, I guess, what was the reaction on the streets? What did you see on election day? was the reaction on the streets? What did you see on election day? Yeah, I was actually in his headquarters in a hotel in downtown Buenos Aires. And crowds of people like gathered outside of the hotel, you know, as soon as the polls closed, you know, there would be several more hours before the results came in. I mean, people, you know, you'll find people coming in from like, you know,

in some cases from other provinces, few hours away, wanting to try to get a glimpse of him. So you had that scene outside and then inside, you know, his soldiers, like, you know, a lot of young libertarians. And, you know, one of his top officials came out and talked about how, you know, one of the themes in the prelude to the election was Millet really raising the concern about the possibility that there would be election fraud, which is another similarity to, of course, Donald Trump. And this official came out and said there had been no issue, no issue for the results. And so I think that also kind of reinforced this idea that the results must be looking good. For Argentina, this was a political earthquake. Javier Mule won by a wider than expected margin

and his victory sent a clear message. Argentinians wanted change. And once they became official, it was just utter, utter jubilation inside, outside. You know, Argentina also has like this really strong tradition of like a demonstration of like bongos in the street. And so there was like a flavor of that outside of the hotel. You know, lots of people with flags, you know, chanting, you know, calling out his his slogans. Just euphoria, really.

Milley's politics are obviously pretty polarizing, and he's made a lot of folks in Argentina angry. So can you give me a sense of who his biggest detractors are? Right. I mean, although he earned 55% of the vote, you know, 45% did not vote for him. And so that side is truly devastated. You know, a great deal of concern in terms of the impact that this will have on poorer sectors of society, on civil liberties, on human rights. Some of his loudest detractors are human rights groups, feminist organizations, big blocks on the left. There were intellectuals and scientists and economists who also came out during the campaign, raising concerns about the feasibility of some of his policies, you know, what the potential consequences would be.

I mean, we're now kind of waiting to see who he puts in particular positions and what that might signal about their approach in certain sectors. But there's a lot of fear as well on the street about the implications of his victory. I personally didn't vote for him because I felt like it was a leap into the void. God willing, he surprises us. One of the things he said leading up to the election is that he would be willing to arrest people who protested against him or opposed him vocally. Are people worried about that now? Absolutely. Yeah. And I think, you know, given the the economic conditions, you know, he talked yesterday, today about how the next six months are going to be incredibly hard.

I mean, he's he's full steam of going out to demonstrate, to march. You know, the street is a way of being seen and is a political tool for a lot of sectors and is a right. But how he responds to that, yeah, a lot of people are worried about that. He's also upset the sizable Catholic population there too, right? Yes. upset the sizable Catholic population there too, right? Yes. He's attacked Pope Francis, who is the most famous Argentine at the moment, calling him like the evil, a representative of evil, evil on earth, you know, a filthy leftist. But the Pope, you believe the Pope has an affinity for Raul Castro?

Sí, exacto. Sí, tiene afinidad por for the murderous communists. He's also notably downplayed the crimes of the military dictatorship that was responsible for killing thousands of Argentines in the 70s and 80s, right? you know, it can give license to hateful discourse. I mean, he has minimized the atrocities of the military dictatorship, the last dictatorship between 1976 and 83. He questions the estimated number of people who disappeared and were murdered by the dictatorship and says it was far fewer. Argentina has worked hard and is renowned around the world in terms of how it has tried to deal with that past and bring perpetrators of that violence to justice. And so there is concern around how that, if that work will continue, how that will change. Let's talk about what this means for Argentina going forward.

Back to his promises to slash the government and dollarize the economy, eliminate the central bank. So those are big, big campaign promises, but he still has to work in the legislature, which is really dominated by the center left and center right. So is there a sense that his, these big economic election promises are actually doable? Does he have the power to do that? This is the, this is the big question right now. I mean, there's no, I think there's no question that, you know, the mandate that he was given in the office that he occupies now gives him a great deal of power. But but yes, you're right. His party occupies a small fraction of the seats in the upper and lower house. His party, La Libertad Avanza, Freedom Advances, which got about 10 percent of the seats in the upper house, 15% in the lower house.

That means he has to form coalitions in order to get a lot of his proposals through. I mean, Congress ultimately would be approving budgets. He's already, I mean, he's already aligned himself with certain conservative sectors. He received the backing of former right-wing president Mauricio Macri and the candidate that he had put forward. And it's in fact due to that alliance. It's that alliance that allowed him, of course, to win ultimately. So he has, you know, certain, certain sectors of the conservative coalition, but, but not all of them. Right. So he doesn't have a majority right now, even with the Conservatives. So he will have to appeal or have the support of more moderate parts of Conservative to say nothing of, you know, whether or not he'd be able to appeal to parts of Peronismo, which is largely centre-left.

So we don't know. But there are things that he can do. Plans of privatization can be accomplished, you know, without going through Congress. So it's an open question. So leaders on the far right around the world took notice of this. He got a lot of congratulations. People like Donald Trump in the U.S. and Yadol Bolsonaro in Brazil have celebrated him, embraced him, congratulated him. Is there a sense, Natalie, of where this political shift is taking Argentina? I mean, the reality is that this can be a dramatic U-turn for Argentina. He is intending to change a lot of the ways in which the institutions, the government have functioned. Argentina is known for a lot of its progressive policies. These kinds of shifts

strike at the heart of how Argentines see themselves. But there's also no denying that a lot of Argentines think that it just hasn't worked, that it isn't working, and that perhaps what the government needs is a radical shakeup. It's just, you know, at what cost? All right, Natalie, thanks so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. All right, that's all for today.

I'm Damon Fairless. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner, and I'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.