Milei and a defeat that puts his strategy in crisis

From walking so much on the ledge
maybe one day it can fall.
From trusting me so much
of my luck and my conquests,
on a bar hanger
I finished later.

In the study of the activity of leaders and governments, Gramsci proposed to distinguish the “calculation errors” of what constituted a “concrete historical activity.” That is, a decision that responded to a structural, organic need. Local capitalist politics walks on the thin dividing line that unites and divides both lands. Personalisms and egos are tied to the tensions of a regime in crisis. In the background, behind the voluminous noise that “caste” makes, a sea of ​​poverty and social crisis unfolds, a necessary result of the violent adjustment in progress.

Javier Milei created all the conditions for his own defeat in the Senate. He concentrated a fierce adjustment on provinces, fractions of the capitalist class and the working people as a whole; he fiercely denounced the political opposition of all colors; he proposed a “pact” in which everyone had to capitulate to his agenda; encouraged the massive trolling on networks against all dissent, including that of Victoria Villarruel, his vice president.

To a certain extent, this frenetic action forms a sum of calculation errors. It illustrates, at the same time, the poor presidential ability to read the limits of his political strength. Bound to a form of political construction, he believed it possible to make everyone grovel at his feet by the simple method of contempt. We will return to this question below.

On the other hand, it can be thought that Villarruel acted following the guidelines of a “concrete historical activity”. By bringing DNU 70/23 to the Senate, he contributed his grain of sand to the construction of a less weak political regimefrom the point of view of the ruling class. Where the responsibility for adjustment does not fall on the unstable shoulders of the president, but is structured on a broader consensus, with actors endowed with the territorial and political power that the ruling party lacks. The defender of genocide did more for the ghostly “May 25 Pact” than the entire milleist clique.

In the hours following his second parliamentary defeat, Milei relapsed into strong words. Chained to his story like Ulysses to the mast, he repeated his campaign speeches for the umpteenth time. However, as Claudio Jacquelin wrote this Friday, “the art of selling defeats as successes is always ephemeral.”

He agreement between Milei and Villarruel was formed in a weak way, uniting the conservative and nationalist Catholic right with rabid liberal-libertarianism. Conceptually presented as “fusionism”, that convergence between right-wing factions embodied the multiple forms of rejection that had given rise to social resistance to the adjustment plans and the Kirchnerist efforts that – let us clarify – do not coincide either really or conceptually.

Strengths and weaknesses nested in that variety. The personal and clique rancor They made their contribution to the nascent wear and tear. The vice president was marginalized from Defense and Security, places where she dreamed of making her mark in the service of the so-called military family. Global orientation did the rest: Villarruel has long publicly encouraged a broader adjustment consensus. His message after Thursday’s session was a blow to the clique surrounding the president. Friction form and contentclaimed his career with Milei while celebrated the Senate as “the house of the provinces” and “an independent power of the Argentine Republic.” By doing so, he plunged the knife into the presidential speech, which he came to describe as a “rat’s nest” in the parliamentary palace.

The language of cynicism

Let’s go back to Gramsci. Describing times of organic crisisthe Italian revolutionary stated that “the death of old ideologies is verified as skepticism regarding all theories and general formulas.” In this framework, politics is presented in a crudely realistic way, “even cynical in its immediate manifestations.” [1].

He cynicism that invades the official discourse it is fueled by an acute crisis of representation. It converges with the skepticism that inhabits transiently the subjectivity of mass fractions. He born of the deep disappointment What the efforts of Together for Change and the Frente de Todos meant. a sort of “there is no alternative” (“there is no alternative”) of cabotage, anchored more in disenchantment with the old than in the emergence of new liberal values.

That state of mind, however, is confronted by harsh reality of everyday lifethat marked by the troubles of the economy. The first week of March was enough to overshadow the official celebrations for February inflation. A report from the FIEL Foundation warned of a 5.7% increase in prices in the City of Buenos Aires. At that rate, the monthly estimate would once again cross the harsh border of 20%.

These days also allowed official hypocrisy to be exposed. Denying nodes of their own ideological discourse, the Government accused large food companies for the fierce rebranding. In doing so, he demolished his own myth; one that states that the market orders prices automatically.

Of advice and support

For a long time, Juan Grabois presents himself as an angry advisor to the president. This week, while the official internal situation was tense, the social leader I asked lower the DNU, stop believing the Macristas Caputo and Sturzenegger, return the money to the provinces, the works to the poor, the salary to the retirees and “govern for the people.”

Echoes of bells coming from Rome; discursive hardness that covers softer words, already spoken by Pope Francis. Grabois proposes to Milei that she stops being Milei. May he abandon his place of political subject of a fierce adjustment, dictated by the IMF and concentrated economic power. The friend of the pontiff also has another intention: seek a dialogue with part of those disenchanted with the policy they elected with their vote for the liberal.

The orientation should be understood as complement of the political strategy of Peronism. That consists of verbally admonishing Milei while she is given governance. In allowing the liberal-libertarian management to sink the country, while working towards the next elections, whether legislative, presidential or early.

Simultaneously, the Peronism assumes its part in the right-wing agenda that is on the table. This week, Héctor Daer and Andrés Rodríguez They were willing to agree on a labor reform. They spoke before the big businessmen gathered at the meeting of AmCham, the United States Chamber of Commerce in Argentina. They repeated, in their own way, the offer made by Cristina Kirchner in the 33 pages of his letter. It was there that the former vice president proposed discussing what she called, elliptically, “labor update.”

He Buenos Aires governor It works under the same premise. The opposition verbiage does not prevent Axel Kicillof from collaborating with the central power. just added drones, patrol cars and 400 troops from the Tactical Unit of Immediate Operations (UTOI) to the militarizing crusade that Bullrich executes in Rosario. His Minister of Security, Javier Alonso, announced that there will be a “second stage”; There they would dispatch video surveillance drones and helicopters.

The decision involves endorsing a policy against drug trafficking as violent as it failed. The dramatic images arriving from Ecuador or Mexico confirm this. Populating a city with repressive forces is equivalent to radicalizing the problem. Without question the capitalist business associated with drug trafficking there is no starting point. Nor without debating in depth the drug legalizationlinked to serious attention to problematic consumption.

Calculations and force relationships

Let’s restart. Where does what we choose to define as Milei calculation error? Essentially, in confuse the brittle political endorsement who gave him the runoff with a firm mandate to format the country in the interest of big capital. This tension led the Government to two important parliamentary defeats in just 40 days. It also leads to growing friction with social sectors that resist adjustment.

The employer opposition works on that contradiction. This Thursday, Martin Lousteau -insulted from all corners of the ruling party- offered his endorsement of portions of the adjustment program. One, by no means minor, labour reform. He peronism presented a similar offer: it combined tough rhetoric with calls for consensus. Anabel Fernández Sagasti, Mendoza figure of Kirchnerismasked “to convey to the president that we are willing to discuss each of the titles, we know that from the provinces we can contribute.”

substantial part of the capitalist political arc proposes the discourse of “consensus”. Translated into more concrete terms, it implies agree on the guidelines of the adjustment ordered by the IMF. Design a common agenda that addresses the demands of economic power concentrated and large international financial capital. A “pactism” that implies the continuity of attacks against the interests of working people and the middle classes ruined.

Both Milei’s calculation and the employer’s opposition’s bet face a relationship of social and political forces that tends to emerge constantly. Which is expressed in a multiplicity of conflicts. Becoming partial fights by decision of the leadership of the CGT, fights take place as important as those of GPS-Aerolíneas Argentinas; Télam and the Incaa; Acindar; the teaching in fundamental provinces such as Córdoba and Santa Fe; or university teaching throughout the country, just to name a few.

Esa relationship of forces It was also expressed in the massiveness that painted the streets green and violet on March 8. It is the one that will be seenmost certainly, on Sunday March 24thwhen we return to shout for our 30 thousand detained comrades who have disappeared.

That this force does not weigh in a unitary way on the national scene is responsibility of Peronist union leadership. Was his political decision direct the force shown on January 24 to an attempt at negotiation with the Government. Is your decision continue today for the unsafe unpredictable path of parliamentary lobbying, betting chips that the opposition of Pichetto, Massot and co. Make your contribution to overturn DNU 70/23.

It is urgent fight to impose another course. Articular from below the strength of the advanced, vanguard and fighting sectors. Strengthen neighborhood assembliesand promote the broad development of self-organization and democratic coordination in the workplace and study; in every neighborhood and in every city. Open a different path for the social discontent that is beginning to grow. A path that leads to workers and popular triumphs, not to bitter disappointments of the lesser evil.