Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Extremes touch, some say. And it is always surprising when it happens. The similarity between the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the presidential candidate of Argentina, Javier Milei, is undoubtedly surprising.
Of course, one, the Mexican, claims to be a leftist, while the Argentinean claims his anarcho-capitalism as extreme liberalism. The Mexican abhors the Argentinean (he has already said so publicly in one of his verbose morning sessions). At the same time, the Argentinean, although he does not pronounce himself on Lopez Obrador, attacks Petro, the Colombian president, who claims to be a great friend of Lopez Obrador. Therefore, we can expect from the also verbose Milei an eventual attack on the Mexican.
So far, both AMLO and Milei talk a lot, indeed too much, but they will have to show the effectiveness of their proposals. The Mexican president is ending his administration wrapped in verbiage of contradictory data, swearing that he has had many achievements, spending the money of all Mexicans. But he leaves a polarized country, oozing hatred, bitterness, indebtedness, and militarized.
Milei will enter the presidency of Argentina, promoting polarization and hatred and seeking the useful side of bitterness. In that sense, AMLO and Milei work politically from the same script elaborated in the populism factories. In that logic, it is irrelevant to state whether one is left or right-wing. Ideology is a mask. The important thing for the leaders of postmodern populism is to create an effervescence of social polarization, evoking the deepest fears and ancestral hatreds of sectors of the population to take complete possession of power.
Hitler did this with extraordinary results, at least in his first years. Then came the inevitable outcome of the method: the war that destroyed the country before its defeat in 1945.
AMLO has already compared Milei to Hitler. But he is incapable of recognizing that he works on the same Hitlerian script of polarizing and promoting hatred to remain in power. Hitler’s transition from Chancellor elected by popular vote to dictator was paved with the evocation of all the hate and fears of the German people.
AMLO is doing the same thing, seeking to foment a social festering without return in Mexico as a method to consolidate his political group in power. And Milei is in the process of forming those same hidden feelings in the Argentine popular unconscious. There is no other way to explain his rapid rise to power except for the incompetence of the political forces that have dominated Argentina for the last few years, both Peronist and liberal.
Milei wants to outlaw abortion, opposes sexual diversity, and condemns the feminist movement. And he is still ahead in the polls. He wants to legalize gun ownership by individuals. And he is still ahead in the polls. He wants to change the monetary system to the dollar when the government proposes to use the Chinese currency and to disappear the Central Bank. And he is still ahead in the polls. He wants to evaporate all the ministries concerning social issues and keep only security, justice, and governance. And he is still ahead in the polls. All this says something about Argentine society and may help one understand why it lived under the shadow of military dictatorships for many years. It seems that the times of the military may resurface in Argentina.
AMLO governs Mexico in a close and preferential alliance with the military and drug trafficking. He hates autonomous institutions that serve to force transparency and accountability. He despises women and surrounds himself with opaque and surrendered servants. The LGBT+ movement gives him hives, and he wants nothing to do with it. He wanted to, but could not, disappear the Central Bank. So he colonized it. As well as other autonomous organizations. Of course, he wants to disappear the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation.
AMLO and Milei make politics from hatred, contempt, and caressing the awakening of the deepest fears and prejudices of the people. This Hitlerian script serves to control political power in an absolute manner. Being left or right-wing is irrelevant.
The resemblance between AMLO and Milei is striking. And deeply disturbing.
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