Javier Milei came to power by displaying his contempt for the expansion of rights in general, and the agenda of the women’s movement in particular (“violence has no gender”, “there is no wage gap”). His criticisms of what he calls “gender ideology” are among the concerns of radical neo-right-wingers across the globe: it is not business to turn women against them.
As Donald Trump in the United States and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil did before him, the far-right La Libertad Avanza was able to take advantage of the radicalization of the language of the networks and lift the floodgate on political incorrectness to let through “the thoughts of the common man” contained, apparently muzzled, Dolores Curia points out. It uncovered the pot of racist, homophobic, and misogynist ideas that were already circulating in the deep web, but also in the forums of the country’s most widely read news portals.
Cruelty
Cruelty, an emotional response of “indifference or enjoyment” to the suffering of others, as defined by the Royal Spanish Academy, landed on the Casa Rosada heliport. The writer Martín Kohan pointed out in a radio interview that “cruelty is in fashion”, synthesizing the moments in which the President’s public gestures disseminate cruelty… or its variants.
Synonyms for the adjective cruel range from “violent, bloody, heartless, merciless, insensitive and inhuman” to “brutal, barbaric, ferocious, atrocious, sadistic and savage”.
The President mocks a teenager who faints to one side at a school function and insults a teacher who dares to criticize the pension adjustment. His spokesperson celebrates the closure of the state news agency Télam, which involves layoffs and misinformation. The Ministry of Human Capital blames “irregularities” of the previous administration for the interruption in the delivery of cancer drugs.
The examples are multiplying, but they continue to be covered as news in the mainstream media, where the replication of the attacks is gaining ground over the coverage of the socio-economic effects of the government. If those who exercise the most important public powers have these aggressive, intimidating messages, obviously the call is for the citizenry to be frightened, to be afraid of them. More than fear, terror. Provoking terror is the strategic objective of this type of discourse exercised by the highest political authorities,” says researcher Ezequiel Ipar.
Bullying
Beyond his exasperating personality, the ultra-right-wing Argentinean president Javier Milei feels compelled to bullying and public harassment: through systematic bullying, he attempts to empathize with that portion of the population that inhabits disenchantment and waits in anguish. Perhaps it is in the political nature of his character, or just in the plans of his scriptwriters.
If the previous president, the forgettable Alberto Fernández, was the meme president because of his absolute capacity for mockery, Javier Milei is the bullying president. If the former symbolically condensed the state’s inoperativeness in the face of a country in decline, the latter concentrates the rage at the persistence of the crisis. Rage catalyzed into hatred and contempt for others; impotent fury spewed out in shouts and insults.
While 46 million Argentines are trying to overcome a tremendous economic adjustment, hunger is rampant in the cities and even more so in the interior of the country. Sometimes it is difficult to know whether the president is going forward or backward. Milei has backed away from a decree he signed a week ago that gave members of the executive branch (and himself) a 48 percent salary increase.
And as he is not shy about lying, he pointed out that it was “the product of a decree signed by Cristina Kirchner” (who, by the way, left the presidency in 2015).
Milei continued with the confrontations: he had a series of outbursts in a private meeting with businessmen, in the framework of the Expo Agro. “I’m going to piss on them,” he said. At the meeting, he lashed out harshly at the governors, just hours before the announcement of the aforementioned May Pact, in which provincial leaders and the president will have to reach a national governance agreement.
Perhaps he cannot hold back his anger: he is still angry about the collapse of the Omnibus Law, which derailed in Congress, according to him, because of the governors. “Who do they think they are?” he told agribusinessmen and warned: “If they keep screwing around, I’ll shut down Congress,” he said.
Among the businessmen present were executives from the oil company YPF, Banco Nación and Exponenciar, the firm that organizes the meeting of the rural sector, as well as the Minister of the Interior, Guillermo Francos, and the sister and Secretary of the Presidency, Karina Milei.
Misogyny?
In Argentina, a government came to power that openly proclaimed itself to be anti-feminist. In less than three months it implemented a 33% cut in public policy spending to reduce gender inequality. In May 2022, at the Book Fair, he said he had no reason to “feel ashamed of being a white, blond, light blue-eyed man” and announced that, if he became president, he would close the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.
Misogyny is the dislike, contempt or hatred of women. On International Women’s Day, Karina Milei, sister of the President and Secretary General of the Presidency, left the Salón de los Próceres of the Casa Rosada without a single woman.
The decision erased 17 portraits, among them some heroines of Independence such as Juana Azurduy, María Remedios del Valle, Mariquita Sánchez de Thompson, the country’s first female doctor Cecilia Grierson, Lola Mora, the sculptor from Tucumán, famous for the Fountain of the Nereids.
Other figures linked to the political rights that women won in the 20th century, such as Alicia Moreau de Justo, Eva Perón, and Florentina Gómez Miranda, literary figures such as Victoria Ocampo, Alfonsina Storni, María Elena Walsh, and show business figures such as the singers Mercedes Sosa, Tita Merello, and the Mapuche Aimé Painé.
“I thought that the Pope had given a lesson in greatness and love for others, and that he governed for everyone, not just for the applauders of the moment, who in the long run damage you and you don’t know how much. I only hope that the misogyny of some can be cured with intelligence and nobility,” said provincial deputy Amalia Granata.
Colophon
Cruelty is a language of war. When Milei takes food away from the soup kitchens, he is not thinking about the fact that they are human beings who suffer. He does not care that millions of people cannot buy medicine or feed themselves: pensioners are the first victims of the adjustment because they are defenseless.
Dehumanized, Milei has lost his human nature by “taking refuge in his abstract mathematical formulas”. “And if millions have to die, millions will die, it doesn’t affect him. He only thinks about his equation”, Patricia Chaina points out. Cruelty is implemented from power and transmitted socially.
One of the features of fascism is its cruelty as a policy. The ultra-right is not interested in diminishing or abolishing it, or even in imagining attenuations. Its purpose is to remove all restraints on it, to invest power with an unlimited expansion of cruelty. And they have only been in government for 60 days.
