During our meeting for JDNews in September 2024, Javier Milei warned: “The first thing we cut was state aid to the press. We believe in journalism, we think it is a noble and valuable activity, but it is only so if it is independent. » The Argentine president did not think he was saying that well. At the end of last August, while his government posted excellent results two months before a decisive mid-term legislative vote for the continuation of its liberal reforms, the “chainsaw president” was going to become the target of a real media purge. However, all the economic signals were green: inflation of 200% per year during the Kirchnerist era had been reduced to 3% during the summer, while the poverty rate had fallen from 55% to 31%. And the state debt had fallen at the cost of drastic cuts in public spending.
But just a few days before the provincial elections on September 7, the Kirchnerist Argentine television channel C5N exclusively released audio recordings against Karina Milei. The sister of the Argentine president was accused of having benefited from bribes. The image of a president elected against caste suddenly took a hit. Even before justice had done its work, the local media were multiplying investigations. Weakened, Milei would suffer a first electoral setback. Liberty Advance, his party, was well ahead of Force de la Patrie, a left-wing coalition. This defeat was not without consequences: Argentine stocks listed on Wall Street fell by 15%. Even Marcelo Longobardi, one of the most famous right-wing influencers, mentioned “the dizzying fall in popularity of Milei, whose economic policy has lost all credibility”.
The international media against Milei
“For me, Milei was clearly the target of a destabilization campaign, estimates Nicolas Marquez, writer, official biographer of the Argentine president. It must be understood that practically all local media, from the major Peronist daily Clarin to the so-called conservative La Nacion are against Milei! First, all Argentine journalists were trained in the same schools and universities, clearly oriented to the left, but Milei also called into question an entire economic model. For decades, “pauta oficial”, institutional advertising, was used as a political tool by Kirchnerist governments which economically supported the media, in exchange for this government advertising. By eliminating this old practice, Milei weakened the press groups and impoverished many journalists who had long benefited from financial largesse from the Kirchnerist state. »
The entire international political-media sphere found itself in the general criticism of a president whom it liked to caricature as a raving madman.
A theory “conspiracy”believes for her part the famous center-left journalist Gabriela Pepe, interviewed by JDNews. “President Milei does not like criticism. He cannot coexist with journalists. He does not understand that we have a role of control and that it is part of the democratic game to question the power in place. And then, she further specifies, there are many more journalists than you think who support him. » Perhaps… Still, the international press would quickly follow in the footsteps of the Argentine media. “Milei from Heaven to Hell”headlined the famous progressive Spanish daily El País.
The entire international political-media sphere found itself in the general criticism of a president whom it liked to caricature as a raving madman. In France, public radio and television channels – with two or three exceptions such as Public Senate –, never short of simplifying shortcuts, described Javier Milei as an “extreme right” president and scrutinized his socio-economic results with always the same specialists to comment on them in an unfavorable light. The same people were much more lenient towards Venezuela when Hugo Chavez claimed to have drastically reduced poverty, by showing official figures called into question by all economists.
Economic pressures
After calling Javier Milei a “little imperialist dog”Louis Boyard, simple French deputy of LFI, saw his remarks relayed in the left-wing Wokist and Peronist daily Pagina 12. Everything except a surprise for Agustin Laje, author of The cultural battle. “Venezuela has financed the Argentine and Spanish left for years. Jorge Taiana, recently elected Kirchnerist deputy in Buenos Aires, was foreign minister at the time when Venezuela was sending suitcases of dollars to finance the campaign for 21st century socialism in Argentina.he specifies. And to add: “The pressure for destabilization has been supported behind the scenes by foreign economic lobbies working for currency devaluation. » As Milei liberalized Argentina’s economic environment with looser rules to attract investors, many began to have doubts.
“The global left tends to label anyone who questions its privileges as far-right or fascist”
“On television sets, journalists began to freely discuss, morning, noon and evening, the risk of President Milei’s dismissal. Obviously such rumors have frightened financial circles who do not like institutional instability, analyzes the economist Agustin Monteverde. This had an impact on “country risk”. It fell to more than 1,100 points in October. Everyone started buying dollars, and this caused the peso to fall, with an inflationary trend again. Milei was then forced, to restore oxygen to his economy, to ask Trump for economic support. » This aid is not necessarily well received in Argentina, as some see the United States as the foreign power that supported the dictatorship of the 1970s.
“The unions, pro-Gaza or LGBT associations then multiplied all kinds of demonstrations, some of them violent, to occupy the streets by calling Milei a Yankee, a fascist, an anti-feminist, a homophobe, etc. At the same time, Kirchnerist senators and deputies blocked all his vetoes to carry out his liberal reforms. If they could, they would have removed Milei even before the legislative vote,” still ironizes the writer Nicolas Marquez.
During the interview he gave us, Javier Milei had this premonitory sentence: “I am neither right nor left, I am liberal libertarian. But the global left tends to label as extreme right or fascist all those who question its privileges, its neo-Marxist project. It’s his way of caricaturing those who think differently than calling them Nazis, for that matter. » A few days before the legislative elections, the polling institute Centro estrategico latinoamericano de geopolitica (Colag), considered rather to the left, taken up by all the national and international press, predicted a very bad score for Milei, with more than 55% unfavorable opinions. “By winning more than 40% of the votes, the victory of La Liberté Avance surprised us all”admits Nicolas Marquez. It must be believed that this media war had almost succeeded, except in convincing the Argentine voters themselves.
