Hear
Javier Milei He returned fascinated from the VIP tourism adventure in Silicon Valley. While his government was crumbling, between expulsions, cruel inmates and resounding denunciations, he was dazzled by an idea that he communicated upon his return: the possibility of reform the State with artificial intelligence.
“We were talking to the people at Google and we are going to be working on it”, he revealed on Tuesday at the Casa Rosada, as if revealing the antidote to an unsolvable drama. The robots are marching, he seemed to say, in contrast to the analog crisis of the Ministry of Human Capitalengulfed in flames due to the inability to distribute food to the needy and to regularly hire people capable of carrying out the basic tasks of the administration.
He made the announcement, without much detail, to answer a question about the role he will give to Federico Sturzeneggerannounced but not yet appointed minister, whom he wants to put in charge of debureaucratization but fears that his entry into the Cabinet will revive old disputes with Luis Caputo, the head of Economy. “Environments” must be defined, he said. He may have meant “the contours”, that is, the space of action of each one.
The allusion to artificial intelligence connects with the illusion of a government without humans. The president himself gloated the next day, before businessmen and economists, that he has an adjustment underway to fire 75,000 public employees.
In the libertarian government, the desire to shrink the State is mixed with a cumbersome coexistence in the first line of power. Until now he has been lavish in resignations, and getting replacements is difficult. “Almost always the first and second options say no. And hopefully he ends up accepting the third one,” explains an administration source. The cruelty with which the presidential friend was fired Nicolas Posse of the Chief of Staff added a relevant precedent for the future.
Will artificial intelligence come to Milei’s rescue? Google’s module to collaborate with governments aims, in reality, to improve services for the population and certain logistical processes. They are experimental tools that are already being tested in some countries, such as Singapore. But it is seen as an insufficient solution for the karma that Milei has been carrying since he won the elections: how to manage that State that he hates, without bureaucratic experience, in a parliamentary minority and with a visceral rejection of consensus as a method of social transformation.
About to complete six months in power, those ghosts appeared all together at his door. The crisis in Human Capital forced him to use himself as a shield Sandra Pettovello. He ruled that it is “the best minister in history” to cut off any debate about her friend’s suitability to handle that petite government that includes Social Development, Education, Culture, Labor and Anses. He presents her as the great standard-bearer against corruption and attributes the shortcomings in the distribution of food, the scandal in the irregular hiring of personnel and the crushing of officials that that portfolio became to the war waged with social movements.
“You can’t allow suspicion about Sandra. The true transversal connection with the public that supports him does not happen through economic promises but through the fight against ‘caste’. They can tolerate a lack of suitability or inexperience, but not a case of corruption“, summarizes a Pro leader of fluid dialogue with the Casa Rosada.
Without yet resolving that crisis, the alarms about governability that have haunted Milei since the campaign were raised again.
The approval in the Chamber of Deputies of a new pension update formula hits the libertarian boat in the waterline. The hypothesis that a force outside the Government can threaten Milei’s fiscal plan erodes the national and international confidence of this always so unpredictable subject called Argentina.
“I don’t give a damn, I’m going to veto everything!”Milei threatened the gathering of Kirchnerists, radicals and various Republicans who voted for the pension project. He took refuge again in the comfortable terrain of the conflict, after offering air for weeks to his new Chief of Staff, Guillermo Francosto negotiate a version of the Bases Law capable of passing the Congress filter.
A race has just started to see who can get the first law of this historical era. Whether it is the delayed and reduced founding project of the libertarians or the provocative reform of a sector of the opposition. The President’s disinterest in politics limited his negotiators’ ability to avoid such a defeat, which can now be reproduced in the Senate at zero cost to legislators invited to raise their hands.
The veto as a weapon is double-edged. The President’s rivals have the possibility of insisting on two-thirds of the votes, a theoretically possible goal judging by the result of Tuesday’s session. It would be a dramatic escalation, but not at all ruled out. Especially when instead of appeasing, listening or counteroffering, Milei denounces the “degenerate prosecutors,” calls his rivals a “filthy caste,” and comes out to promise more spending adjustments (“until it hurts”), like the father who threatens to send a child to bed without eating.
The gadget of “principle of revelation”which Milei applies to validate himself in opposition to his adversaries, loses freshness. The “caste” may be losing its fear of social ridicule. Destitution in politics is a device that only works as long as the person who exercises it is successful.
The market has been filled with noise in recent weeks, fueled by doubts about the technical viability of Caputo’s program and about the political virtue of libertarians to promote structural reforms.
The unknown that hovers over the financial world refers to Milei’s ability to maintain high numbers of popular support during the desert of the fierce recession that Argentina is experiencing. Will economic recovery come before government support runs out? Everything revolves around the variable “time”, as in any project that walks on the thin ice of public opinion.
That certainty exposes Milei to a trap. If the positive image figures depend on the decline in inflation, how will you take the risk of leaving the recipe that got you here and that is beginning to have less effect? If his followers blindly applaud his attacks on Congress, what incentive will push him to avoid boxing and instead unblock a path of legal reforms?
Until the International Monetary Fund (IMF) He has just warned Argentina about the need to expand support for its program. In Washington it is difficult to understand that the President has not even progressed towards a parliamentary agreement with the Pro, the party most related to his economic ideas and which until now loyally accompanies him in legislative discussions.
Milei came to power accompanied by a very efficient strategy. He was able to connect with the social humor of a country fed up with his leadership, he demonstrated a very particular talent for communicating with the disenchanted, and the severity of the economic crisis proved fertile ground for his ideas of extreme change. Among the assets of his figure, the condition of a man who does not hesitate and who does not know the nuances stands out.
He is brutal, he is inexperienced, he is extremist and he does not shut up before anyone. 30% of the electorate voted for him for all those reasons (not despite them). And another almost equivalent portion joined the runoff to give it a chance, as a useful instrument to sweep Kirchnerism away from the government.
The perplexity of its opposition and the lack of alternative leadership has given it a gigantic delegation of power on the part of the citizens.
This week’s parliamentary defeat, however, may be a turning point. A first taboo was broken when the radicals agreed to vote for a law with Kirchnerism. Nothing worse for a project based on fiscal health than the latent challenge of a parallel administration that is willing to impose a spending agenda from Congress. Suspicion of a destabilization plan is established in the Casa Rosada.
If the political monster awakens, the urgency for economic results will become more pressing. Milei is applauding for the drop in inflation, but surveys are beginning to register a growing fear of losing one’s job. He insists that the recovery is coming and will be V-shaped. “The photo is horrible but the movie is wonderful”he insists.
Minimize the duel with your rivals. “I love being the mole within the State! I am the one who destroys the State from within, it is like being infiltrated into the enemy ranks,” he said these days in an interview with the Californian site The Free Press.
He repeats phrases like that like a rocker playing his old hits. He draws a clear line between friends and enemies, hoping to receive viral applause from his followers on social media.
It communicates with the logic of the algorithm, waiting for its words to be amplified in the bubble where we often become puppets of our own tastes. Fantasize about the rational government of the artificial intelligenceto free us from the human temptations that have led us to disaster.
He is a man pulled by his two souls. Much to his regret, achieving success depends less on the agitator waging battle against universal socialism than on the accidental statesman forced into the office routine of managing a country.
