I.

I have voted exactly twice. The first time, I was 18, and I was attracted by the novelty. I didn’t like the candidates, and my vote left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I decided back then to never do it again. I promised to myself: “I won’t delegate power to a politician ever again.” (legal note: In Argentina this is, in fact, illegal. Voting is compulsory. As with many things, however, it’s not enforced. I never suffered any consequences other than the occasional gasp from a patriotic family member. )

More than 15 years later, I’m living outside of Argentina, in a kind of voluntary exile. Surprising even myself, in Nov 2023 (exactly 1 year ago!), I went to the ballot tables for a second time. What made me change my mind?

Javier fucking Milei.

II.

I consider myself an optimist. Most of my work has been fighting overwhelmingly unbalanced causes. I feel invigorated by David against Goliath epics. Argentina, however, deflated my natural enthusiasm. Since I was born, the country has been sinking in populist waters. Few people shared my anarcho-libertarian political views. Certainly no-one involved in politics. Argentina is such an exhaustingly unstable country with no rule of law, that dealing with “government stuff” can occupy 50% of your time if you let it. I decided not to.

With time, I learned to ignore Argentine politics and focus on other more global crusades (eg: crypto adoption to foster economic freedom). It felt like a better use of my time. Eventually, I even stopped talking politics altogether. Argentina seemed more and more like a lost cause to someone with my views.

Enter Milei. I first noticed him as a candidate for the Argentina Presidential election of 2023. As I’ve written about, only living abroad I mustered the emotional energy to engage in Argentine politics. In early 2023, I studied Milei as one of the many minor candidates for the primary elections, unlikely to win. I soon realized this guy was different. When other politicians spoke, they seemed dead inside. Milei was alive. He had real ideas, values to defend. For the first time, an Argentine politician talked with authenticity. It was refreshing.

I sent a message to my highschool friends: “If I could find how to, I’d bet he wins the election”. My generation is numb to the horseshit coming out of politicians. It turned out many younger and older folks are too.

III.

Milei won the primaries and the general election. Being the first libertarian president, the world paid attention. I did too, from my home across the Rio de la Plata. Many criticized him as lacking experience (which was true), and said his government would be a disaster execution-wise. I was very surprised with how well he did. He actually exceeded my wildest expectations. So what has Javier done in his first year?

He was inaugurated in December 2023. That same month, he reduced the number of government ministries from 18 to 9. He achieved the first monthly budget surplus in over a decade. On his FIRST month.

The Argentine government has famously overspent its severe tax burden. Milei promised to end that, and boy did he ship it fast.

In early 2024, he fought tooth and nail to get his Omnibus Law approved by Congress. The law aimed at broad economic reform, in line with libertarian ideals (deregulation, labor market flexibility, privatization of state-owned enterprises, and reducing bureaucracy). He only got to pass a watered-down version by June and after a lot of struggle, due to a lack of majority support. This was a crucial step towards Milei’s vision for a freer economy.

Despite significant economic unrest during 2023, Milei maintained relatively high approval ratings as most Argies supported aggressively combating inflation.

(I want to clarify that the economic crisis in Argentina is due to horrific economic policy from the past leftist government. I facepalm so hard when international commentators attribute the high inflation or increase in poverty to Milei. You just have to look at this chart to know it’s dumb: Argentina was going towards hyperinflation, and Milei prevented it. It’s the reason he was elected!)

He also “stabilized” the USD/ARS market rate:

The pesos per dollar rate has been decreasing since July 2024, from 1500 to 1140 in November. It’s hard to explain how unusual this is for Argentines. I’ve seen ARS/USD steadily increase ALL MY LIFE. Maybe the graph up to Milei’s presidency helps drive the point home:

Some other misc wins:

The next urgent topic for his government is, in my opinion, reducing poverty. Poverty has increased from 45.2% when he was sworn in, to 52.9% now. Again, this is more a consequence of the two previous governments than Milei’s. Poverty rose from 30% in 2015 to 45.2% in 2023. This is the most serious issue. More than 24 million Argentines are living with less than 217 USD per month. An alarming 11.5%—or 5.3M people—can’t even afford food, and live with less than 98 USD/mo. Now that Milei has tamed inflation (which hurts poor people the most), it’s time to fix this. Let’s see how he does with this huge challenge.

In short: Milei did what he promised. He aggressively pursued economic reform, reduced the size of the government, reduced government spending, and tamed inflation. For us with a libertarian lean, this is great for Argentina.

My stance: cautiously optimistic. I should probably mention that it’s easy to say all this from my very priviledged position outside of both the 52.9% who now live in poverty, while also living outside the country. I’ll be tracking Milei’s second year closely. He will hopefully maintain his high 50% approval rating and achieve positive results for the mid-term legislative elections. That’s when the fun starts.

IV.

Milei is a weird person. He truly is different.

It’s been fun to see the Argentine left lose their minds at his every move. Argentines voted for drastic change, and it’s happening. It turned out lefties pretend they care about the weird ones until a true weirdo appears. They’ve been calling him crazy, mad, nutcase, autistic, aspie, too academic, hopeless, incel, fascist, antisemitic (!?), and of course, a nazi.

From a personal standpoint, the greatest achievement I thank Milei for is rekindling my hope for the future of Argentina. For the first time since I have a memory, I now think Argentina might become viable again as a serious country. He also performed the miracle of transforming me from apolitical to his strong supporter.

Many remain unconvinced (or strongly opposed). I think time will make the momentum irresistible. A new era for Argentine (and global!) politics has begun. I believe it has.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Ivan and Ari for feedback on this post.

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