The eccentric far-right populist Javier Milei has failed to win the first round of Argentina’s presidential election, with the centrist finance minister Sergio Massa unexpectedly beating his radical challenger.
Supporters of Milei, a potty-mouthed political outsider described as an Argentinian mashup of Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Boris Johnson, had hoped he was heading for a sensational outright victory similar to Bolsonaro’s shock triumph in Brazil in 2018.
I’m not familiar with Argentinian politics. What would you call him?
Most things I read the last few days called him left wing. But things get fuzzy calling people/parties left/right, especially across different continents.
They’re kinda center/left. For anyone right, They’re basically communist, and for anyone left they are neolibs who co-opted social issues to keep the economic status quo on place.
Wait, if you were speaking about Massa… Oh boy, that is a hell of ride. He is center right. Peronism is kind of a mix of different pokitical ideologies mashed into one that works because tries to keep extremism to a minimum. And because they are very good user of demagogia and political oportunism. They’re not leftist. Some would say they are similar to US Democrats.
A POS? Okay, maybe that just my marxism speaking, but he is a right winger. Socially conservative, economically ultraliberal. And that is usually not a really good combination. Add to that that his party is filled with Plan Condor denialists and apologists and you have quite a cocktail to drink there. For us leftist, he’s like Videla all over again (but without the power ofc)