Argentina on the edge of the precipice, and below the demons await

By Víctor Ego Ducrot

The stagnation driven by Donald Trump's tariff policies with the intention of saving the dollar from the debacle – the debt and trade imbalance of the United States is measured in trillions – is global in nature, but it will fall most heavily on the euphemistically called developing or emerging countries.

Drums of war are beating all over the planet, except in Latin America, for now. It is enough to note that the EU is talking about a first investment in new armaments for 80 billion euros. Meanwhile, China is unfazed by Trump's broadsides and responds to them "stick by stick."

In this scenario, indebted to the impossible and isolated from the world by the atrocities said and committed by President Javier Milei – he only knows how to flatter Trump in an undignified way – Argentina is on the edge of the precipice and, down there, in hell, the demons are waiting for the Argentines.

It could be risked that the government of the ultra-right-wing lunatic entered its final stage, although, it is true, it is not yet known what the ways, forms and dates of the final outcome will be.

But the truth is that the indicators in this regard are growing. Pollsters cannot hide that the fall in the president's image and social acceptance measurements has become an apparently irreversible trend.



This has been happening in recent weeks, after the episodes of the crypto scam led by Milei and under the magnifying glass of a US federal court; the brutal repression of the protests of retirees and pensioners, and his recent statements about the Malvinas Islands in favor of the United Kingdom and in violation of the National Constitution.

To all this chaos was added the fact that the external debt is excessive. The dollars demanded from the IMF take time to arrive and therefore the Central Bank finds its reserves depleted by the flight of foreign currency that is systemic. The exchange rate crisis and in the markets in general is just around the corner.



In addition, last weekend the president flew to one of Trump's private residences in search of a photo and returned empty-handed, and amid unintelligible words about the effects that the White House's tariff restrictions will cause. Meanwhile, his foreign minister, Gerardo Werthein, a member of a family of bankers, occupies the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but for the sole purpose of attending to his business, tending to stay with one of the country's large telephone companies.

At the same time, Congress rejected the two candidates who, by irregular decree, had been proposed and appointed by the Executive Branch to be part of the Supreme Court of Justice. And on the closing of this text, the same Parliament created a commission to investigate the crypto scam, in which Milei is the main responsible.

A 48-hour general strike called by the hitherto collaborationist CGT and other labor federations is planned for this week. And the main media of the written press, TV and digital sites are doomed to predictions of various national calamities; even those most allied to Milei's fascist regime babble without being able to articulate a convincing defense.

The other aspect of the delicate political situation in Argentina is the anomie and irresponsibility of the main opposition forces, which particularly fall to Peronism in all its variants. With few exceptions, such as those of this week when they rejected the candidates for the Court and approved the aforementioned investigative commission, in Congress these forces had been giving governability to the regime of the fascist lunatic.

In the middle of a mid-term election year – the chambers of Congress and provincial legislatures are partially renewed – Kirchnerism, the hegemonic space in Peronism for the last 20 years, suffered what he called its first "exposed fracture".
The governor of the province of Buenos Aires, the most populous and therefore decisive in the national polls, Axel Kicilloff, decided to question the already injured leadership of former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and strong turbulence is coming, especially because that province is the territory of Kirchnerist domination, or was until now. The questions are open.

However, the majority of the population lives oblivious to these ups and downs of professional politicians, battered by government adjustments, poverty, unemployment and the cost of living, all realities that are of greater magnitude than those recognized in official and private statistics.

Without a space of a seriously progressive or leftist nature with real opposition capacity, the political life of Argentines is a drift and the survival of the government of the fascist lunatic is in the hands of forces that are not exactly of a popular nature.
Milei's fate depends on how the intra-bourgeois disputes will be resolved, within the bloc made up of the decisive business groups, agriculture, mining and energy, telecommunications, media and technology companies, and some export product industries, in the not always transparent bid with the financial and speculative sectors, true experts in capital flight.

When business opportunities in some of these decisive sectors fall to a critical point, Milei and his sad troupe of unpresentables will be the past, although the future of Argentine democracy will continue to be in a state of coma or at least of dramatic uncertainty.

For the end, some portraits that come from the very bottom of the Argentine abyss.

A madman, a tarot reader and a dead talking dog are at the forefront of the country, in the midst of a global tragedy. Those were more or less the words issued on social networks by the Argentine academic, doctor of communication and historian Carlos Ciappina, colleague and colleague at the National University of La Plata (UNLP).

The madman, of course, is called Javier Milei. The tarot reader is his sister and strong voice in the government, Karina; and the dead dog that speaks from the beyond was called Conan.

But that is already known history. Perhaps less well known is that a surname, a family, which belonged to the close circle of the former president Mauricio Macri, also right-wing, now manages the Argentine economy and finances, the intelligence services and a good part of the private businesses that enjoy the privileges granted to them by the Casa Rosada.

In October of last year, colleague Giselle Leclercq, from the Buenos Aires newspaper Perfil, published an interesting journalistic x-ray of the Caputos, a who's who in that family always linked to power.

The day Javier Milei won the elections, he went on stage and thanked the young Santiago Caputo, whom he defined as "the true architect" of his campaign. His name immediately caught the eye: he was another member of a family that has been close to power for decades. Until then, the adviser was unknown to the general public, says that article.

And he adds: Santiago's influence in the government is surprising. Although he does not hold any official position, he has interference in practically all areas. Among the allies of the fascist lunatic, it is recognized that he is the one who wields power, between turbulence and constant trips with the tarot reader.



The other Caputo (Toto) was the one who signed with the IMF the largest debt in Argentina's debtor history, on behalf of then-President Macri; and he is reproducing the same scheme under Milei's mantle.

But there is a third. Nicolás "Nicky" Caputo, a lifelong friend of the aforementioned Macri and currently very active in his private businesses of all kinds, with the support of the government.

Santiago (without any previous experience in the administration, a disciple of the Ecuadorian consultant Jaime Durán Barba, always at the service of the right), Toto and Nicky are not the only acquaintances... Francisco, one of the three brothers of the presidential advisor, would be collaborating with the government in areas such as energy. The list of famous Caputos can also include Flavio and Rossana, the owners of "Caputo Hermanos", the company that was involved in the investigation into the attempted assassination of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, adds the text published by Perfil.

Those are the main cheerleaders of the gang that surrounds the president, an improvised group of perverts, geeks, scoundrels, white-collar thieves, people with mental problems, mythomaniacs, irresponsible, useless and opportunistic, to use the words of one of the many critics who usually write on the networks.

And we come to the end of this text but not the end of the Argentine tragedy.

RMH/VED





Victor Ego Ducrot  Argentine journalist, writer and university professor. PhD in Communication from the National University of La Plata (UNLP), Argentina; professor of History of the Twentieth Century (Chair II) at the Faculty of Journalism and Social Communication of the UNLP, where he is also in charge of postgraduate and doctoral seminars on Editorial Intentionality (A theoretical and practical model for the production and analysis of media content); Media and Criminology: Analysis and Critical Production of Narratives on Crime, Crime and Violence; Journalistic Essay or Essay Journalism and History: Emergencies and Mutations in Transit in the Twentieth and XXI Centuries. Read more... Columnist in Argentine and Latin American media. Founder and current director of the Journalistic Agency of Buenos Aires (AgePeBA). Author of numerous books, including Los sabores de la Patria; Norm; Buenos Aires 1996 and republished in 2010; The Flavors of History; Norm; Bs.As; 1997; Recolonization or Independence: Latin America in the Twenty-First Century, Norma; Bs.As., 2004, co-authored with Stella Calloni; The Overthrown (historical novel); South american; Bs.As.; 2005.