Milei, the lonely and violent boy who is presented as the new thing but is not

CECILIA VALDEZ

The journalist Juan Luis González has been investigating Milei and, through his figure, the so-called new Argentine right, since 2021. Milei represents and encompasses a phenomenon that came to kick the Argentine political board and question many of its most basic precepts regarding the consensus of democracy. 

In a scenario of deep discontent due to a serious economic crisis that only deepens, the self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist presents himself as new and different, in relation to what he himself calls the “caste”, in reference to traditional politicians. and its privileges, but, as González's research demonstrates, it is neither new nor different.

In his book “El loco”, an unauthorized biography, González addresses the life and political career of the far-rightist, and gives an account of his personality. Without a political framework behind him, and built on the basis and around his personality, his candidacy - representing La Libertad Avanza (LLA) - also challenges and forces us to analyze other complex variables: his ties, his loneliness, his emotional instability and his great dedication and growing interest in the mystical.

His dogs, as González says, are a key part of his environment, and the death of his dog Conan - whom he treated like a son - was a very important milestone in his life. Not only did he clone him, but he says he talked to the dead dog, and that those conversations led him to have conversations with other dead people until he reached God: “He is convinced that he has back-and-forth dialogues with God, and he gets involved.” in politics because he says that God told him he was going to be president in 2023.”

Who is Javier Milei? 

For some, Milei is the savior of the country, and for others it is bad news. Above all, he is a deeply lonely man with a really very difficult life and a lot of violence, both physically, at home - by his father and with the complicity of his mother - and at school. That, added to the lack of friends and a partner, were constituting that great trait of his personality which is this tremendous loneliness, and which is closely related to the story we are talking about. Milei's political history is impossible to separate from that terrible loneliness, and from his mystical path, due to the impact of the death of the dog that was his barrier to loneliness. That caught my attention and changed the way I approached him. I share almost nothing with Milei, but he is a very complex guy to analyze. Although his main visible characteristic is that phenomenal violence with which he became known, investigating his life in depth I could not help but empathize with that lonely boy whom his father not only beat, but who told him all his life that he was useless. . 

Having worked so much on Milei's personality, what surprises you about the changes that have occurred in him after his victory in the PASO -Primary, Open, Simultaneous and Compulsory in which the candidates were defined-?

The changes after the STEP are more aesthetic than real. Behind his great campaign work is Santiago Caputo, who is his strategist and is working very well on this idea of ​​moderating Milei. But it's a fiction, that can't last long. Within hours of winning the PASO she went to Uruguay, and her first statements were: “Left-handed people are human excrement.” There were Church meetings with Milei's team to try to lower the decibels, but then she gave an interview to journalist Tucker Carlson and said: “The Pope is a communist who banks on murderous regimes.” That is the real Milei, the moderate one who may last a while, the one in the campaign, but I don't think he will resist that trait in him as president. There are only two Milei, the lonely boy and the violent one we all know.

But although it is not in Milei to moderate, if it is finally a government, it will have to negotiate...

We will see, I am convinced that reality awaits him with several slaps in the face, from some constitutional ones, to being a minority in both chambers, and Argentina's own instabilities. It may happen that, despite Milei, it happens, that is, even if he does not want to moderate and negotiate, the rest of the space does. We will have to see how he deals with the stress and loneliness of power.

Many say that the great brain behind Milei is Victoria Villarruel - his candidate for vice and a recognized denier and activist for "complete memory" -, and they argue this based on what behind him, and his precarious political set-up, he has. There must be someone with greater political experience. Do you agree with that?

No, Villarruel is not the big brain behind Milei. Milei is a lonely boy, without personality, who when you adopt him he follows you wherever you go. He was a liberal who met (Diego) Giacomini in 2005, a capitalist with much more experience and his first friend, and there, with Giacomini's hand, although they later fought, he converted to anarcho-capitalism. In 2021, he meets Villarruel and there he begins to incorporate things that had interested him in his life, such as the dictatorship or the 30 missing people. The other day, former Foreign Minister Javier Bielsa, who was Milei's co-worker at Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, said that he had breakfast with Milei every day and that he had never heard him talk about the dictatorship in all those years. Therefore, what I was telling you, when you give him a little love he changes his mind and ideas without a problem. And regarding his political setup, it is just that, a precarious political setup, there is no puppet master. Not even (Eduardo) Eurnekian, in his role as his media sponsor, because it was not his intention to install him as president. He would tell you that until August 13 (STEP date) except for Javier Milei and his sister Karina, no one in space thought they had a chance of becoming president. Until that day, La Libertad Avanza (LLA) was 50 people that you could gather on a 5-a-side soccer field (a field smaller than the one for 11 players) and you had plenty of space. 

You say that Javier Milei and LLA are not what they show, do you think they have a double discourse like that of traditional political parties, or similar to what they call caste??

Yes, totally. The book has two ideas, one is to show the true face of Milei and the other is to show the true face of LLA, a party that was born in 2021. The leader (Milei) reaches the media due to the push that his boss gives him. (Eurnekian), a historic State contractor, with the speech that the boss tells him he has to have. Then they get him into politics with Espert (a liberal politician), because the boss tells Espert to join him. Libertad Avanza was born with a system of negotiations that have nothing to do with meritocracy, they exchange stamps - they give up their structures to facilitate certain presidential candidacies -, such as Unite and the MID, in exchange for places on the lists. Unite is controlled by (José) Bonacci, a fascist with a neo-Nazi past, and the MID by Oscar Zago, a guy who was a four-time legislator for the PRO (founded by Mauricio Macri), and is a close friend of (Daniel) Angelici (vice president of the Argentine Football Association), a judicial operator of the lowest ilk, which is who he traveled the world with. Then you have (Ramiro) Marra (candidate for head of government of LLA in the city of Buenos Aires), who came from the massista youth (of Sergio Massa); (Carlos) Kikuchi, a residual of the SIDE (former Secretary of Intelligence of the Argentine State) and, in the past, spokesperson for the former Minister of Economy, Felipe Cavallo. I can go on, but in fact, the only LLA policy of 2022 until now was to get rid of all the liberal leaders and militants, there is nothing new there, they are all recycled. 

What is the base caste?

It is a term that Fede Simonetti coined, in “A country of idiots”, and that for me perfectly defines what La Libertad Avanza is: the hangover of caste. People who tried to belong, or who at some point belonged to other large political parties, but, either they did not succeed, or they do not have the track record, contacts, resources, capacity, charisma, etc., that is needed to be political, and they end up falling into this residual armed group, which is that of La Libertad Avanza.

You say that Milei is a lonely, broken man, who had his first friend at 30, his first partner at 47 and who spent 13 Christmases and New Years toasting alone with the dog, how does a man like that manage to be the focus of all the stares and having to be surrounded by people permanently?

I am now in Córdoba and here is a famous anecdote from when Milei came in 2021 for a meeting with businessmen. He came, gave a talk and wanted to leave, but businessmen approached him to greet him and ask for photos, and he became angry with a girl, the daughter of a businessman who went to ask him for an autograph; He yelled at her and the girl ended up crying. So, with that anecdote I answer: 'How does she do it? Well, she carries it as she can.' He not only has that violent and lonely thing, but social relationships are difficult for him. Anyone who has spoken with Milei says that you cannot have a back and forth dialogue, not even about banal things, he talks to you about economics, politics, or dogs, there is no other topic. His life and his circle are still very closed. The other day he was talking to a neighbor from Milei in Bellavista, the neighborhood where he lives, and she told me, no one comes in here, which is the same thing that the journalist Laura Di Marco said, the only person who entered his house. . I collect that chronicle in the book, she says: “the man of the moment lives alone, he is a child trapped in the body of an adult, emotionally unstable and lonely.”

What can you tell me about Milei's international contacts? And about the digital strategist Fernando Cerimedo?

Now Milei's international contacts are growing, because as with everything, before the PASO he was not seen very seriously. But you have Villarroel, who is a personal friend of Ortega Smith, Vox's second, both children of a military family, and Nahuel Sotelo, a legislator from Milei in Buenos Aires who has contact with Bukele in El Salvador. And (Fernando) Cerimedo, a great player on the right, but who exceeds Milei and is not an organic member of La Libertad Avanza. Cerimedo is in another game, at a more regional level. He was a benchmate of Eduardo Bolsonaro, Jair's son, and was behind Bolsonaro's campaign, and worked for (Joe) Biden, when he was vice president. A few days ago, the sociologist Ariel Goldstein told me that he interviewed Diana Mondino in June, and he told me that the title of the note was: “I am not interested in Milei's international relations”, this is said by someone who is probably his chancellor. . I tell you this in the sense that his international relations are not so well-oiled either, because no one in La Libertad Avanza imagined that Milei really had a chance of governing the country. You can even see the importance they gave to Milei, because of the place where they place it in Vox's Viva España in October 2022, they put it in the afternoon in the context of the festival.

Why the enmity with the Pope?

In the fight with the Pope, I infer that there is something of Milei's messianism involved, because Milei says that in the conversations he has with God, God tells him that he has to get into politics to be president and defeat the evil one. So, that's the mission: defeat the evil one, and he says that the evil one is also the Pope. I think there is something about mystical shocks there, but I'm already guessing there.

You have been closely following Milei's growth process. In your opinion, what are the reasons that explain this growth?

Well, the longest chapter of the book talks about the reasons that explain this growth.

For me, this is explained by the changes that operate in capitalism, which leaves a lot of people outside the formal and labor system, the emergence of social networks, and an individualism that breaks down the idea of ​​community and puts old stories in crisis. that helped us explain things, like religion. It is also a reaction to progressivism and advances in gender policies. And Argentina has to do with the fact that he manages to present himself as the new thing, when he is not, he has been working in politics at least since 2002. So, he not only manages to capitalize on the current discontent but also presents himself as the hope . I debate a lot the thesis of the angry, angry vote, all of us who vote in Argentina have it, but he recovers a certain hope, and a certain rebellion, romanticism and epic in politics, which neither Massa nor Bullrich managed to rescue. He is also the only one who speaks in revolutionary terms, in the sense of blowing up the Central Bank, or giving one's life for something, in his case, for the market, but who speaks of a certain rebellion that is engaging.

Were you surprised by Milei's triumph?

I was surprised by the 30%, I was sure that it was going to do well, that the new right is something that is here to stay and that there is a reason why it works everywhere in the world. Milei was a great candidate for that phenomenon that is looking for representatives. What I imagined is a second round for him with Bullrich, and I am surprised how Massa manages to have as many votes with the economy as he is, which speaks of his political ability. I imagined Milei with 20 points, but not with 30, and I even less imagined the rest so low, but this clearly speaks of a phenomenon.

Cecilia Valdez She is an Argentine journalist.