{"id":59611,"date":"2026-10-06T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/?p=59611"},"modified":"2026-10-06T11:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T14:36:10","slug":"where-does-milei-stand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/where-does-milei-stand\/","title":{"rendered":"Where does Milei stand?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Javier Milei is going through a two-sided phase. At the ballot box, he is not short of support: on October 26, 2025, La Libertad Avanza won the midterm legislative elections with 40.84% of the vote, a result Donald Trump described as \u201cextraordinary\u201d and which Washington, according to his own statement, made a condition for a package of aid worth up to $40 billion. But the libertarian president\u2019s trajectory is also marked by setbacks and defeats. His sister Karina, Secretary-General of the Presidency and the true \u201cgatekeeper\u201d of power, is still under investigation \u2014 both in Argentina and the United States \u2014 over the collapse of the $LIBRA cryptocurrency, in a case that remains open. On the domestic front, in August 2026 Milei suffered a major political defeat: the Senate approved his bill on the \u201cinviolability of private property\u201d only after stripping it of its most controversial provision, which would have raised from 15% to 25% the limit on rural land that can be acquired by foreigners. Amid protests, clashes with police and accusations of \u201cselling out the country\u201d \u2014 amplified by the patriotic mood surrounding the World Cup \u2014 the government was forced to back down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the foreign-policy front, by contrast, the strategy is delivering results. In April 2026, Milei made his third state visit to Jerusalem and reaffirmed his full alignment with Israel and Washington in the war against Iran. On September 17, 2026, he once again stirred up the longstanding dispute with London by introducing a bill that toughens sanctions against companies involved in the exploitation of the Falkland\/Malvinas Islands. What holds together such a multifaceted figure is his showman\u2019s instinct: on October 6, 2025, Milei turned the launch of his book La construcci\u00f3n del milagro<\/em> (The Construction of the Miracle) into a rally-concert attended by 15,000 people at Buenos Aires\u2019 Movistar Arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To understand the \u201cMilei phenomenon\u201d beyond the immediate news cycle, one must go back to its roots: an outsider who remained on the margins of Argentina\u2019s political system until his resounding breakthrough in the media between 2016 and 2021, when he was elected to the National Chamber of Deputies representing the city of Buenos Aires. His rise emerged from the intersection of two simultaneous crises. On the one hand, the profound rejection of politics understood as an activity serving the common good. On the other, the irreversible transformation of Argentina\u2019s \u201cFordist\u201d economy, whose social fabric was eroded by deindustrialization, the growing foreign ownership of productive assets, and the shift toward a service-based economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That process dissolved the class identities on which the old representative system had been based. Amid this dual economic and political shift, Milei\u2019s discourse managed to tap into three longstanding demands within Argentine society: the fight against inflation, which hits wage earners and informal workers hardest; the rejection of a corporatist society perceived as suffocating individual effort; and the frustration with a state that creates privileges for a select few close to those in power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economy, however, is not enough to explain Milei\u2019s success. A decisive factor is \u201cgorilismo\u201d: the deep and cross-cutting anti-Peronism that has been rooted in part of the Argentine electorate for more than fifteen years. It is an outright rejection of everything associated with Peronism, a movement historically identified with defending popular sectors, but also perceived as a source of privileges for those who administer its redistributive system. Milei has managed to fuse a plebeian and irreverent style with a libertarian ideology, a combination that serves the interests of the big capital backing him: the axis formed by the United States, Israel, the financial sector, and the international right. From this perspective, right-wing populism emerges as the strategy through which concentrated capital captures popular discontent and prevents it from turning into genuine opposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born out of the pre-hyperinflationary collapse inherited from the Fern\u00e1ndez government, Milei won the election by bringing together support from both the poorest sectors and the more affluent. Today, however, that coalition has fractured: popular sectors, having seen no tangible improvements, are partly abstaining from going to the polls, while the middle and upper classes remain firmly on his side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His fate in 2027 will depend on the evolution of the economy and on the possible emergence of a credible alternative, given the major difficulties facing Kirchnerism in becoming one. As political scientist Andr\u00e9s Malamud points out, anti-Kirchnerism remains Argentina\u2019s strongest political identity, a terrain on which Milei continues to move with ease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*This text was originally published by the Italian outlet Pubblico of the Fondazione Feltrinelli.<\/sub><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Milei is going through a period of contrasts: he retains electoral support and international backing, but faces growing internal tensions that are putting the strength of his political project to the test.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":956,"featured_media":59574,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17088,16733],"tags":[15635],"gps":[],"class_list":["post-59611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-javier-milei-en","category-argentina-en","tag-debates"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/956"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59613,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59611\/revisions\/59613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59611"},{"taxonomy":"gps","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gps?post=59611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}