Argentina General Discussion 🇦🇷

[Estrella]

Thank you so much for these, Argentina is a fascinating (if sometimes tragic) country.

Thank you!
Yeah, I feel Argentina is one of the few countries on Earth where you genuinely don't know whether you're writing a summary of history or a melodrama, for better or worse.

Just stumbled upon those summaries! They’re really interesting! Are you planning on continuing them into the Peron era?

Thanks! (: Ideally, I'd like to get up to the coup that removed Perón sometime soon and then I'll continue according to how much time/energy I'll have, until I get to present day.

There was a guy named Carlos Menem who was President in the 90’s who famously converted to Catholicism as their constitution required it at time. His Presidency is widely criticized for being tied to the country’s economic troubles at the turn of the millennium.

More like Carlos Meme I remember how Lumine's description of Menem as basically a caricature of Berlusconi helped get me to go down the rabbit hole of Argentine political history. He was, well, quite a character. Hell, he even drove a Ferrari.

Oh, and his ads! They started out reasonably normal, but in 1999 he couldn't stand for reelection and decided to support the anointed successor, which led to the creation of one of the cringier examples of the 'Latin American campaign song probably paid for with embezzled public money' genre, Menem lo hizo (MenemMeme did it). Rather deservedly, it was the target of many parodies, though I have to admit it's pretty catchy. And then there was, of course, ¡VAAAMO MEEENEM!

Indeed, both of his parents were Sunni Muslims from Syria but he converted to Christianity sometime "in his youth". As President, he then pushed through a big constitutional reform that, among other things, removed that requirement. I think the Presidential oath mentions santos evangelios to this day, though.

The tied to the 2001 crisis part is a bit more complicated. Menem's presidency was the first time since early 70s that economy wasn't going down the drain, though that's more thanks to Domingo Cavallo and his Convertibility Plan (1 peso = 1 dollar). You're correct in that lots of things were done wrong - corruption during privatizations, huge deficits, overheating economy, overvalued currency and the fact that money printer can't go brrr when you have a fixed exchange rate meant that all eventually blew up in the face of his well-meaning but hapless successor. Menem had a big part in that disaster, but he was hardly the worst President regarding economic incompetence.

And it might just be the sideburns, but MenemMeme has always reminded me of Ivan Mládek.

[Velasco]

There was a guy named Carlos Menem who was President in the 90’s who famously converted to Catholicism as their constitution required it at time. His Presidency is widely criticized for being tied to the country’s economic troubles at the turn of the millennium.

More like Carlos Meme I remember how Lumine's description of Menem as basically a caricature of Berlusconi helped get me to go down the rabbit hole of Argentine political history. He was, well, quite a character. Hell, he even drove a Ferrari.

(...)

And then there was, of course, ¡VAAAMO MEEENEM!

I love the Vamos Mebem video from the 2003 campaign. It reveals the man was ahead of his time. He was clearly the greatest showman, better than Berusconi

Once I got a little obsessed with the 2003 elections and wrote a long post in Spanish, with maps and stuff. I have forgotten nearly everything, but I think I compared Carlos Menem with Silvio Berlusconi: the 'politics of the spectacle'

https://saintbrendansisland.wordpress.com/2015/01/24/argentina-2003/

It's amusing to see how popular is the Trot candidate here, but I prefer Lavagna

[Estrella]

haha what

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1320172896543772673

From purely anecdotal evidence (=looking at Twitter), people voting for Despertar are mostly the typical far-right demographic, that is men in their 20s and 30s frustrated with TEH SYSTEM and with Macri for being too moderate. Can't blame them, really, this was bound to happen at some point given the very special way Argentina is ed (a big part of which was too much economic interventionism, carried out with criminal stupidity at that, and I'm saying this as a sorta leftist) but it's still surprising to see Espert in double digits. Most likely, like almost everywhere else in the world, 90% of people voting for libertarians are actually various shades of fash and dollars to donuts would've cheered on such charming figures as Videla were they born 40 years earlier.

Somewhat related to this, I have a pet theory on why non-Peronist right was so weak in Argentina post-Perón, something pretty strange when you compare Argentina to other Latin American countries, where middle- and upper-class people vote strongly for the right - in AR, they usually voted for the kinda-sorta-centrist-liberalish-moderate-hero UCR. The easy answer is that Argentine politics was never really ideologically based, and it might just be that simple and I might be overthinking it, but I guess that:

1) they tanked in the 40s and 50s when the middle class flocked to Radicals as better anti-Peronists than stuffy old feduals who ran a dictatorship just a couple of years before

2) they remained unpopular in the 60s and early 70s because of their association with the army and its constant coups that promised to bring political stability but achieved the exact opposite (unlike, say, Pinochet), though they did get one good election result (14% for former dictator P. E. Aramburu in the 1963 election)

3) in the 70s they actually had some support (15% and 12% in the two presidential elections), which led to the 1976 coup, but afterwards...

4) during the Proceso the dictatorship was more concerned with stabbing each other in the back, declaring open season on leftists, committing an ungentlemanly act in the South Atlantic and completely ing up the economy

5) in the 80s there was basically a two-party system not based on the left-right paradigm* that didn't leave much room for them and they were too closely associated with the army and their excesses, both during Proceso and later with the Carapintadas rebellions

6) the 90s was basically a continuation of the previous factors - not surprising given that the most relevant right-wing party was MODIN, a lobby group for disgruntled army officers that served as a receptacle for random protest voters

7) in 2001, López Murphy acutally got a decent result but with the explosion of party system and increasingly personality-based politics, they were unable to find the right candidate. This, however, was a much more liberal right than the anti-Peronist/anti-communist fanatics of the 70s and earlier

8​) Cambiemos Juntos por whatever they're callling themselves today is, probably, centre-right if you're looking for a one-word description, but besides Republican Proposal ("liberal conservatives" as written in the SACRED WIKIPEDIA INFOBOX, which is, admittedly, a reasonable approximation of reality - though Macri did praise Peronism, so there's that) it has also more centrist, centre-left and shameless opportunist people.

* To the extent it was, it could be argued that during much of the 80s and 90s, Radicals were actually to the left of Justicialists, but let's not get into that.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

haha what

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1320172896543772673

From purely anecdotal evidence (=looking at Twitter), people voting for Despertar are mostly the typical far-right demographic, that is men in their 20s and 30s frustrated with TEH SYSTEM and with Macri for being too moderate. Can't blame them, really, this was bound to happen at some point given the very special way Argentina is ed (a big part of which was too much economic interventionism, carried out with criminal stupidity at that, and I'm saying this as a sorta leftist) but it's still surprising to see Espert in double digits. Most likely, like almost everywhere else in the world, 90% of people voting for libertarians are actually various shades of fash and dollars to donuts would've cheered on such charming figures as Videla were they born 40 years earlier.

Somewhat related to this, I have a pet theory on why non-Peronist right was so weak in Argentina post-Perón, something pretty strange when you compare Argentina to other Latin American countries, where middle- and upper-class people vote strongly for the right - in AR, they usually voted for the kinda-sorta-centrist-liberalish-moderate-hero UCR. The easy answer is that Argentine politics was never really ideologically based, and it might just be that simple and I might be overthinking it, but I guess that:

1) they tanked in the 40s and 50s when the middle class flocked to Radicals as better anti-Peronists than stuffy old feduals who ran a dictatorship just a couple of years before

2) they remained unpopular in the 60s and early 70s because of their association with the army and its constant coups that promised to bring political stability but achieved the exact opposite (unlike, say, Pinochet), though they did get one good election result (14% for former dictator P. E. Aramburu in the 1963 election)

3) in the 70s they actually had some support (15% and 12% in the two presidential elections), which led to the 1976 coup, but afterwards...

4) during the Proceso the dictatorship was more concerned with stabbing each other in the back, declaring open season on leftists, committing an ungentlemanly act in the South Atlantic and completely ing up the economy

5) in the 80s there was basically a two-party system not based on the left-right paradigm* that didn't leave much room for them and they were too closely associated with the army and their excesses, both during Proceso and later with the Carapintadas rebellions

6) the 90s was basically a continuation of the previous factors - not surprising given that the most relevant right-wing party was MODIN, a lobby group for disgruntled army officers that served as a receptacle for random protest voters

7) in 2001, López Murphy acutally got a decent result but with the explosion of party system and increasingly personality-based politics, they were unable to find the right candidate. This, however, was a much more liberal right than the anti-Peronist/anti-communist fanatics of the 70s and earlier

8​) Cambiemos Juntos por whatever they're callling themselves today is, probably, centre-right if you're looking for a one-word description, but besides Republican Proposal ("liberal conservatives" as written in the SACRED WIKIPEDIA INFOBOX, which is, admittedly, a reasonable approximation of reality - though Macri did praise Peronism, so there's that) it has also more centrist, centre-left and shameless opportunist people.

* To the extent it was, it could be argued that during much of the 80s and 90s, Radicals were actually to the left of Justicialists, but let's not get into that.

One thing that seems weird is that Espert/Milei's support appears to be inversely proportional to support for Macri. By conventional wisdom you'd think that they eat mostly from Macri's support and thus poll higher in his strongest regions, but actually they poll worst in Buenos Aires city (where Macri dominated even in 2019), better in Buenos Aires province and best in Argentina as a whole, which seems like the exact opposite pattern.

An explanation I've heard is that a lot of economic liberals voted for Fernandez out of a belief that he might turn out to be like Menem. I'm not sure how accurate that is but it does match up somewhat with your explanation of the non-ideological nature of Argentinian politics. Does that sound plausible or do you have a better explanation?

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

haha what

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1320172896543772673

From purely anecdotal evidence (=looking at Twitter), people voting for Despertar are mostly the typical far-right demographic, that is men in their 20s and 30s frustrated with TEH SYSTEM and with Macri for being too moderate. Can't blame them, really, this was bound to happen at some point given the very special way Argentina is ed (a big part of which was too much economic interventionism, carried out with criminal stupidity at that, and I'm saying this as a sorta leftist) but it's still surprising to see Espert in double digits. Most likely, like almost everywhere else in the world, 90% of people voting for libertarians are actually various shades of fash and dollars to donuts would've cheered on such charming figures as Videla were they born 40 years earlier.

Somewhat related to this, I have a pet theory on why non-Peronist right was so weak in Argentina post-Perón, something pretty strange when you compare Argentina to other Latin American countries, where middle- and upper-class people vote strongly for the right - in AR, they usually voted for the kinda-sorta-centrist-liberalish-moderate-hero UCR. The easy answer is that Argentine politics was never really ideologically based, and it might just be that simple and I might be overthinking it, but I guess that:

1) they tanked in the 40s and 50s when the middle class flocked to Radicals as better anti-Peronists than stuffy old feduals who ran a dictatorship just a couple of years before

2) they remained unpopular in the 60s and early 70s because of their association with the army and its constant coups that promised to bring political stability but achieved the exact opposite (unlike, say, Pinochet), though they did get one good election result (14% for former dictator P. E. Aramburu in the 1963 election)

3) in the 70s they actually had some support (15% and 12% in the two presidential elections), which led to the 1976 coup, but afterwards...

4) during the Proceso the dictatorship was more concerned with stabbing each other in the back, declaring open season on leftists, committing an ungentlemanly act in the South Atlantic and completely ing up the economy

5) in the 80s there was basically a two-party system not based on the left-right paradigm* that didn't leave much room for them and they were too closely associated with the army and their excesses, both during Proceso and later with the Carapintadas rebellions

6) the 90s was basically a continuation of the previous factors - not surprising given that the most relevant right-wing party was MODIN, a lobby group for disgruntled army officers that served as a receptacle for random protest voters

7) in 2001, López Murphy acutally got a decent result but with the explosion of party system and increasingly personality-based politics, they were unable to find the right candidate. This, however, was a much more liberal right than the anti-Peronist/anti-communist fanatics of the 70s and earlier

8​) Cambiemos Juntos por whatever they're callling themselves today is, probably, centre-right if you're looking for a one-word description, but besides Republican Proposal ("liberal conservatives" as written in the SACRED WIKIPEDIA INFOBOX, which is, admittedly, a reasonable approximation of reality - though Macri did praise Peronism, so there's that) it has also more centrist, centre-left and shameless opportunist people.

* To the extent it was, it could be argued that during much of the 80s and 90s, Radicals were actually to the left of Justicialists, but let's not get into that.

One thing that seems weird is that Espert/Milei's support appears to be inversely proportional to support for Macri. By conventional wisdom you'd think that they eat mostly from Macri's support and thus poll higher in his strongest regions, but actually they poll worst in Buenos Aires city (where Macri dominated even in 2019), better in Buenos Aires province and best in Argentina as a whole, which seems like the exact opposite pattern.

An explanation I've heard is that a lot of economic liberals voted for Fernandez out of a belief that he might turn out to be like Menem. I'm not sure how accurate that is but it does match up somewhat with your explanation of the non-ideological nature of Argentinian politics. Does that sound plausible or do you have a better explanation?

As someone with a few family members and acquaintances that are open to voting for Espert or Milei, a large part of it is simply that they don't have an open history as corrupt politicians and they're seen as more honest than Macri, Alberto and Cristina, but I'd say that firmly less than half of their support is from hardcore ideologists, being on TV shows almost every other day gives them a lot of support from fairly non-ideological people and those with very ideosynchratic (sp?) views

Rodriguez Larreta (PRO, mayor of Buenos Aires) is currently on a huge popularity surge and is the most popular politician in the country, especially in his home turf. And Macri is riding on his coat tails a bit, also Macri isn't as despised on Buenos Aires City as he is in many other regions

There's certainly some UCD guys who voted for Fernandez, and Scioli, for the reasons that you mentioned but I would guess that it's a very small group

Also, Lopez Murphy is seen by many (especially in the middle and upper middle class) as the one honest (living) career politician

[Estrella]

One thing that seems weird is that Espert/Milei's support appears to be inversely proportional to support for Macri. By conventional wisdom you'd think that they eat mostly from Macri's support and thus poll higher in his strongest regions, but actually they poll worst in Buenos Aires city (where Macri dominated even in 2019), better in Buenos Aires province and best in Argentina as a whole, which seems like the exact opposite pattern.

An explanation I've heard is that a lot of economic liberals voted for Fernandez out of a belief that he might turn out to be like Menem. I'm not sure how accurate that is but it does match up somewhat with your explanation of the non-ideological nature of Argentinian politics. Does that sound plausible or do you have a better explanation?

That... doesn't really make sense?

While ideology doesn't play a big role in Argentine politics, it's not completely dead and last election was an unusually stark choice where it was generally understood that Macri would be more concillatory to the IMF and continue his gradual economic reforms, plus there was a widespread suspicion that Cristina would try to be a backseat driver from the vicepresidency. I'm guessing that virtually everyone who might be called an economic liberal voted for Macri and those few who didn't went for Lavagna - not really a liberal, but at least a respected economist.

What's more important though is that while politics doesn't revolve around the left-right divide, it doesn't mean there are no divides at all; the important distinction is between Peronists and non-Peronists. Right-wing Peronism exists, but it's not what it used to be and what's known as Federal/Dissident Peronism consists of extremely vague populists and provincial strongmen who are conservatives in the same sense Brezhnev was. Not much room for economic liberals there - they never voted for Peronists in any significant number, not even in the 90s. If you look at the maps of 1989 and 1995 elections, the areas that voted for Menem the neoliberal are the same that voted for Cristina the leftist and Alberto the whatever.

And while Alberto looks like he'll end up governing more moderately than Cristina, I really doubt he'll turn into another Menem. Menem got away with what he did because of specific circumstances of that era, but those policies are toxic among Peronists after the 2001 crisis.

tl;dr once you discount random middle-finger protest voting, I think there are just quite a lot Fernández ↠ Macri and Macri ↠ Espert voters. After all, Mauricio was never truly hated and had some genuinely spectacular popularity ratings when it appeared he's handling things well. Who knows, maybe his loss will turn out to be a blessing. okay so Alex corrected me on this.

Or maybe it's just a crap poll ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[H. Ross Peron]

Can anyone explain Lavagna's ideology and support base? He seems to have been supported by a coalition of both more moderate Peronists as well as the Socialist Party and served in Nestor Kirchner's cabinet suggesting he isn't exactly a neoliberal in economics despite his technocratic inclinations. From what I can tell, he seems like the best choice in the Presidential elections last year.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

I agree that the results are weird and likely won't hold up until next year's elections, but Espert / Milei / Despertar / Libertarians have been getting around 10% in many recent polls, but then again Argentinean polls are hardly great and we're still almost a year away from the next elections and Argentinean campaign season is short

[Estrella]

Here's a great video about Argentina's response to the coronavirus. The most important thing isn't even about the quarantine itself; it's that this crisis is on track to become as bad as the one in 2001... but there isn't any sort of massive popular reaction to it, not like what the country has seen before. In 2001, the people went out in the streets and there were strikes and protests and riots and ¡que se vayan todos!, but now - almost nothing. This is, obviously, due to the quarantine but I can't help but feel like people are becoming resigned to this.

Oh, and the dollar is about to cross 80 pesos. Was 60 this time last year and 35 two years ago. *slow clap* That is the official(-ish) exchange rate, though. Dólar blue, the more realistic black market rate, is something like 170. Joy.

[Estrella]

Can anyone explain Lavagna's ideology and support base? He seems to have been supported by a coalition of both more moderate Peronists as well as the Socialist Party and served in Nestor Kirchner's cabinet suggesting he isn't exactly a neoliberal in economics despite his technocratic inclinations. From what I can tell, he seems like the best choice in the Presidential elections last year.

Ideology - you pretty much explained it yourself. However, he doesn't really have a base, that was his problem. 99% of Peronists coalesced behind Alberto and 99% of non-far-left/non-far-right non-Peronists coalesced behind Macri. I took a look at the results and I was astonished at just how evenly spread his support was. He got the same roughly mid-single digits result basically everywhere in the country. His best provincewide result was 10.7% (Salta), his worst was 3.1% (Corrientes). Based on that, I'm guessing he got the generic "they all suck but this old moderate hero guy seems okay" vote.

[PSOL]

What is happening in Guernica right now with all this eviction talk?

[Edu]

What is happening in Guernica right now with all this eviction talk?

Squatters in private property were rightfully evicted

[Estrella]

What is happening in Guernica right now with all this eviction talk?

A couple of months ago, a tract of private land in an outer suburb of Buenos Aires was occupied as a protest against poverty, mostly by people made homeless during the pandemic. Some families left in exchange for building materials, but others stayed and had their homes demolished by the police. The whole affair was quite violent - 4000 police took part, and there was plenty of tear gas, stone throwing, molotovs, rubber bullets and several wounded people on both sides.

There's something delightfully ironic about a Kirchnerist Minister of Public Security bragging about this operation and talking about a right to private property and how usurpation is a crime (and then going on TV and ranting about left-wing groups).

https://twitter.com/SergioBerniArg/status/1321820121002876929

something something peronists helping the poor

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

What is happening in Guernica right now with all this eviction talk?

A couple of months ago, a tract of private land in an outer suburb of Buenos Aires was occupied as a protest against poverty, mostly by people made homeless during the pandemic. Some families left in exchange for building materials, but others stayed and had their homes demolished by the police. The whole affair was quite violent - 4000 police took part, and there was plenty of tear gas, stone throwing, molotovs, rubber bullets and several wounded people on both sides.

There's something delightfully ironic about a Kirchnerist Minister of Public Security bragging about this operation and talking about a right to private property and how usurpation is a crime (and then going on TV and ranting about left-wing groups).

https://twitter.com/SergioBerniArg/status/1321820121002876929

something something peronists helping the poor

Berni is a weird guy, the only other kirchnerista he gets along with is Cristina herself, who also selected the not very popular or bright Axel Kicillof as candidate for governor of Buenos Aires (Berni's boss, in theory)
But he's also by far one of the most popular kirchnerista/peronista politicians in the whole country and one of the very few with any sort of broad appeal, so everyone who got in a fight with him ended up losing badly
Also, he openly identifies as a law-and-order right-winger

[Estrella]

We Want the Colonels: Arturo Rawson / Pedro Pablo Ramírez / Edelmiro Julián Farrell

1943—1946

Considering why the Revolution of '43 took place, it might seem strange that someone like General Arturo Rawson would be made president after Castillo was deposed. Apart from his career choice, he was virtually indistinguishable from old grandees that ran the country during the Infamous Decade. He was militantly Catholic, conservative, well-connected, and so were his cabinet appointments. Even to those who weren't a part of GOU, such a blatant attempt to keep things as close to the old regime as Rawson was trying to was unacceptable. After a paltry three days in power, poor Arturo resigned on June 7, 1943.

His successor was another General: Pedro Pablo Ramírez. He still wasn't as friendly to GOU as they might have liked, but unlike Rawson, he appointed an all-military cabinet (except Minister of Finance) and distanced himself from the pre-coup government.

Everyone hated Castillo's government, and so the junta of Ramírez was quite popular, at first. However, he soon came up with many authoritarian measures: arrest and imprisonment of communist leaders, dissolution of troublesome trade unions and taking control of universities (nacionalistas harboured a seething hatred towards teachers and the secular education system in general). On the other hand, he passed some measures to help farmers and launched investigations into some Infamous Decade corruption scandals. All in all, something, but not much.

Some people in the junta didn't want to continue Concordancia's inaction, though. They had bigger plans.

❊❊❊

Juan Domingo Perón was born on October 8, 1895 in Lobos^*, not far from Buenos Aires. He did well in elementary school and clearly had potential, but he had a problem. In those times, the best way for someone from a decidedly non-elite background to move up the societal ladder was a military school. But Juan was an illegitimate child and even worse, the son of an Indigenous (Quechua and Aónikenk) mother. That didn't stop him: a forged birth certificate gave young Juan an opportunity to join the prestigious National Military College.

Juan was a good student and quickly progressed through ranks until he was high enough to join the United Officers Group. When Ramírez was forced to resign over being too unfriendly to Axis and GOU finally got their man in Edelmiro Farell, his old friend Perón got a promotion: he was appointed Minister of Labour. As previously mentioned, CGT had a tradition of, ehm, "cooperation" with the government. It was a pragmatic organization with little socialist or communist presence, so the task wasn't very difficult. Nevertheless, Perón proved more active than expected. To chagrin of his cabinet colleagues, he regularly took the side of workers in labour disputes and pushed for better labor laws and more social benefits. The unknown officer suddenly became a well-known and popular figure among otherwise apolitical ordinary people.

On January 15, 1944, the Andean city of San Juan was hit by a devastating earthquake. Aroun 10,000 people died, the whole city was destroyed and in need of complete rebuilding. Minister Perón got to work: he led the organization of relief efforts. This made him well-known throughout the country, not just among the unionized workers of Buenos Aires. He also organized a fundraiser gala for high society of the capital city, where he met a certain someone... but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Perón's colleagues viewed his rising popularity with suspicion. In September 1945, he made a radio speech excoriating conservatives opposed to his policies. In reaction to this, General Eduardo Ávalos pressured him to resign. Days later, Perón was arrested and exiled on Martín García Island. On October 17, on a date that would later become known as Loyalty Day, hundreds of thousands of workers gathered in Plaza de Mayo to call for Perón's return. It was the largest popular mobilization since the days of Yrigoyen. At this point, the junta seems to have become genuinely frightened; they released Perón and called for elections to be held the following year.

❊❊❊

On one hand stood the National Coordination Junta: Partido Laborista, Perón's attempt to create a trade-union based party inspired by British Labour, in alliance with UCR Junta Renovadora, Radicals' left wing. On the other hand was Unión Democrática. As shown by the phrygian cap in their logo, they were ostensibly a grand front of forces from the whole political spectrum united against a dangerous populist and/or wannabe dictator, led by intelligentsia, professionals and the middle class. In reality, they were a barely functioning shotgun marriage of conservatives and liberals who thought Perón was a crypto-communist with socialists and communists who thought he was a crypto-fascist. Despite its ideological incoherence, UD was, at first, surprisingly good at mobilizing support. An anti-junta (which Perón was considered to be an arm of in these circles) rally in September 1945, March of Constitution and Liberty, drew some 200,000 people.

An important part of UD's campaign was the fact that Perón came to power thanks to an anti-US and somewhat pro-Axis military junta. They were opposed to nacionalistas and considered good relations with US and UK crucial to Argentina's future. They had an ally in this - the American ambassador Spruille Braden⁺. Braden was fluent in Spanish and personally addressed UD rallies, an idea that might have looked good to US-friendly elites but screamed "Yankee interference!" to vast majority of voters. Reacting to this, the Peronist propaganda machine cast the election as a clear choice: Braden or Perón. Ordinary Argentines were tired of exploitation by foreign companies and receptive to a message of restoring national dignity. They knew where they stood.

Imperialist lackeys on one side, a dictator-in-waiting on the other - after what was possibly the ugliest campaign in Argentine history, the election finally came on 24 February 1946. The Juan Perón/Hortensio Quijano ticket won 53% against 46% of UD and José Tamborini/Enrique Mosca. The Peronist alliance won a two-thirds majority in Chamber of Deputies, all but two seats in the Senate and every single governorship except Corrientes.

The voters didn't know it yet, but this election was the first example of the way this country's politics would be divided from now on:  two camps, not liberals and conservatives, not left and right, but two separate Argentinas: one of the Peronists, other of the Anti-Peronists.


^* Probably.

⁺ Unsurprisingly, Braden was a big fan of Truman Doctrine and after leaving Buenos Aires helped organize the 1954 United Fruit coup in Nicaragua.

[Estrella]

Nationalism, Socialism, Orbis Tertius: Juan Domingo Perón

1946—1955

I won't be explaining the detailed definition of Peronism here, whatever it is; it wouldn't tell us much anyway. But if you'll go looking for a succinct description, you'll be disappointed. It's an ideology on the left and right, progressive and conservative, moderate and radical, seeking justice but opressing those who need it, free of ideology yet staunchly dogmatic; all of that tied together with grandiose politics of spectacle.

So what better way to talk about Perón than through a melodramatic series of opposites?

— it was the best of times —

On Tuesday, 4 June 1946, General Juan Domingo Perón was inaugurated President of Argentina. Immediately after entering office, he got to work. His positions on many issues weren't clear. Nevertheless, he had an idea - vague in many respects, specific in others - of how a new Argentine state should look like. More than that, he was absolutely determined to turn it into reality.

Perón could thank the dominant trade union confederation, the CGT, for his ascent to power, and thank he did. He appointed many trade unionists to high positions in the government, created a very union-friendly environment in workplaces, gave wide-ranging powers to labour courts and radically expanded workers' protections and enshrined them in the Workers' Bill of Rights. By 1950, CGT had grown to over 2 million members, some 40% of Argentine workforce. In return, they served as his closest political ally, campaigners and GOTV organization.

Radicals and even Infamous Decade governments made cautious steps to create a rudimentary welfare state, with some successes. What Perón did in the first years of his term blew these attempts out of the water. By early 1950s, the vast majority of working population had access to social security and health insurance. The country's economy benefited hugely from the post-war economic boom and years of quick growth and rise in real wages ensued.

Even after industrialization of the ISI era, Argentina's economic growth was driven largely by natural resources of all sorts - soil, pastures, forests, oil or minerals. But after being harvested or extracted, these commodities need to be delivered to waterfront and from there to their destinations overseas. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that whoever controlled the infrastructure used to transport these goods controlled the country's economy - and since late 19th century, it had been the British. It was understandable - back then, Argentina was a poor backwater while UK was the world's most advanced industrial economy and had the know-how to go with that - but by 1940s, they had overstayed their welcome.

Perón cut his political teeth taking the side of workers in labor conflicts involving companies owned by British private conglomerates and absentee landlords, so it won't come as a surprise that he had no time for the latter. He came up with a solution that was in the vogue even in capitalist countries: nationalization. In the first years of his presidency, railways, public transport, merchant marine, mining, metallurgy, siderurgy, grain elevators, electricity, gas or telephones were transformed into state-owned enterprises that were to form the backbone of Argentina's new economic system.

All of this was put under an umbrella with a familiar name: the Five-Year Plan. The first one was launched in 1947, the second one would start in 1951. Given how these sorts of master plans tend to go, this one was surprisingly succesful. The main achievement was the creation of IAPI, a state-owned enterprise that controlled foreign trade, but there were many other projects, mostly in infrastructure (new roads, railways, power plants, electrification etc) that were created during this era.

It seemed like Argentina was, at last, becoming a true first world country.

— it was the worst of times —

The President's plans were very nice, but turning them into reality was a different matter. Sure, many of them did work, but there were plenty of bumps on the road.

As CGT grew larger, it also became more emboldened. Unions stopped with their subservience and strikes became a regular occurrence - especially in industries that were still in private hands. Peronism certainly isn't Communism and isn't inherently opposed to private businesses, but Perón's relationship with industrialists wasn't great. As long as strikes weren't too common in nationalized industries, the government had nothing against them - in fact, they were given tacit encouragement. It wasn't long before Peronists started seeing strikes not as a protest from angry workers that needed to be addressed, but as a tool to be used against political opponents - a way of thinking that lasts to this day.

There was also another problem. The Cold War had just started and the US government was concerned about the spread of communism to its South American backyard. Perón himself had very little sympathies towards communists and left-wing opposition to himself in general, but the State Department thought that his left-wing nationalist policies were the first step towards Soviet infiltration or at least moving Argentina away from the NATO sphere of influence. The country's exports were hurt by the US refusal to buy them for use in the Marshall Plan. In reaction to this, Perón again proved that he was a pragmatist first and foremost and ratified a regional security treaty with the US. Otherwise, he still remained... well, a heroic anti-imperialist to some and a dangerous isolationist to others: Argentina refused to join what was to become the WTO and IMF.

[Estrella]

— it was the age of wisdom —

The nationalizations, Five Year Plan and general nationalist attitude of the government were all very popular among the working class, but they were all pretty "abstract" things. Standards of living had improved somewhat during the wartime economic boom, but millions of people were still living in precarious conditions - suburban fields littered with rotting shacks or damp, cramped city apartments, subsisting on meager wages, often barely enough to afford food and basic necessities.

A massive expansion of social programs did huge lifting to help with this, but a more permanent solution was needed. Before Perón, Argentina had an extremely imbalanced educational system: free, universal and compulsory primary school education and correspondingly high literacy rates, better than even some developed countries; on the other hand, higher education was only available to those in military officer training and a narrow circle of elites. Perón's government sought to change this. Enrollment in commercial and technical high schools more than doubled and a National Workers University was created for working-class engineering students.

Juan Perón was a friend of the hard-working and the needy - that's how he and his half of the country saw it, anyway.

— it was the age of foolishness —

He wasn't a friend of intellectuals, though. Shoes yes, books no was a famous Peronist slogan; another, unofficial one, was haga patria, mate un estudiante - build the fatherland, kill a student. Universities were a stronghold of opposition to Peronism - partly, of course, because students and faculty were coming from the elite, but also because of the creeping illiberal nature of the regime, exemplified by new textbooks filled with propaganda ("Long live Perón! Perón and Evita love us."). Perón didn't like this at all. He fired over a thousand university professors who spoke out or signed petitions against him. A famous writer was threatened with being fired from Buenos Aires city library and sent to work as a poultry inspector at the city's market after criticizing the President.*

Nuclear physics, sadly, wasn't Perón's strong suit either and after surrounding himself with yes men, he didn't have anyone to warn him when he was approached by a certain Ronald Richter. Richter, an Austrian physicist of rather dubious credentials, convinced Perón to help him continue one of Nazi Germany's many unfinished vanity projects, an attempt at creating a workable fusion nuclear reactor (something which, by the way, we still haven't accomplished today). This started the Huemul Project - an utterly insane pseudoscientific endeavor that made Argentina waste millions of dollars at a time of increasingly struggling economy. Hell, even Evita herself called out Perón for being so naive, and yet the project continued, with ever-louder scientific ridicule (Edward Teller, the co-inventor of hydrogen bomb, didn't mince words and called Richter "crazy") until Perón was deposed. In the meantime, the President bragged about Argentines being soon able to buy energy in milk bottles^x.

Even worse, Richter was far from being the only Nazi given shelter: hundreds of Wehrmacht and SS officers or functionairies in the Third Reich government fled to Argentina where they avoided prosecution - most famously Adolf Eichmann, one of the very few to be later brought to justice.

— it was the epoch of belief —

Since Argentina existed, it was, obviously, a Catholic country. Like in the rest of Latin America, the Catholic Church held an important social role, especially in providing education and healthcare for the poor. Under Yrigoyen first cracks in this arrangement appeared with establishment of a secular education system, but his overthrow by and replacement by a reactionary government put a stop to it. When Perón came to power, he wasn't very inclined to disrupt this arrangement. After all, his political roots weren't on the left, but in a culturally conservative, arguably fascist movement. But things changed.

— it was the epoch of incredulity —

Starting in the early 1950s, the President was more and more opposed to the Church. He saw it as a conservative bulwark that prevented his efforts to reorganize Argentine economy and society to his liking⁺. Government passed a series of laws aimed at reducing the influence of the Church, including allowing for divorce and prostitution, not recognizing many Catholic holidays, banning religious expression in public and petty things like a ban on display of religious figures at Christmas.

The Church, until now ambivalent or even supportive of the government, began to find common cause with the opposition. Perón lit the fuse. It wouldn't explode, not yet, but it would ultimately be the first domino in the chain of events leading to his downfall.


^* In 1940 the same writer wrote a short story that the title of this chapter is a reference to and that, if it were written a couple of years later, would have ended up as a parody of Peronism. Seriously: a way of thinking that is completely alien to anything we know, impossible to understand for anyone not surrounded by it from birth and, depending on the observer, either the answer to all of world's problems or a dangerous delusion completely detached from reality.

^x youtube.com/watch?v=C5pbxl4j7Eo ... wait, no, wrong president. Also, "Huemul Project" sounds like an SCP canon or an esoteric cult of the Peoples Temple sort, and was somehow less in touch with reality than either of those.

⁺ Perón's relations with the Church were also hurt by his very public extramarital affair with a certain Nelly Rivas, which could perhaps be excused if the girl in question wasn't thirteen (!) years old. Perón's response to questions about her age was "I'm not superstitious".

[Estrella]

— it was the season of light —

Perón's regime was extremely personalistic from the start, but the spotlight wasn't just on him. When he went to that party at the Luna Park and met a young star of B movies and radio melodramas, a certain María Estela Duarte, he didn't know just how useful she would prove to his cause. Their love was strong and they married just a year later; even if their feelings for each other might have gotten weaker with time, they were careful to present an image of a perfect couple.

Eva Perón, as she was known now, first got involved in politics when she was elected the head of broadcasters' union; by this time, her husband was already famous and that might have helped, but she went on to have accomplishments of her own. She successfully lobbied for women's suffrage and that was what propelled her to fame. She created her own political movement, the Female Peronist Party. As her husband was doing the nitty-gritty of governing the country, she became the public face of the regime. She became associated with philanthropic work, schools, hospitals, La República de los Niños, helping the needy - all while battling an increasingly serious cancer.

But as the real Eva started wilting, little Eva, the mythical Evita was born. She was the spiritual leader of the country, the light that would lead people through darkness - if you were a Peronist, at least. The light was only for true believers in The Cause; others were enemies that needed to be destroyed.

— it was the season of darkness —

Several years into Perón's rule, Argentina was still operating under a heavily amended version of the original 1853 constitution. Perón wanted a new founding document, one that would enshrine the three pillars of Peronism: an Argentina that is socially just, economically free and politically sovereign. He got it in the new constitution, passed in 1949. The document was very progressive: it enshrined, among others women's rights and rights to education and welfare for ordinary people, but it also did something unthinkable: allowed for unlimited consecutive reelection of President.

The constitutional reform and behavior of government in general was drawing more and more criticism. At this time, Perón started showing his authoritarian tendencies for real. Hundreds of opposition figures or disloyal employees were sacked, blacklisted from employment, harassed or forced to leave the country. Even CGT wasn't Perón's ally anymore; they were his subordinates. He ruled the organization with an iron fist and many prominent trade unionists were deposed or even imprisoned after critizing the President.

The year 1951 came and an election was approaching. Juan Perón needed a running mate - who else than his beloved (by the people, at this point not necessarily by him) wife? On August 22, CGT called a workers' rally; over two million people gathered in Plaza de Mayo for the expected announcement of the Perón-Perón ticket. And then, Evita, to the shock of her supporters, said... maybe. She needed time to think it through, she said. But later that day, she announced on the radio that she renounces her decision to stand as her husband's vice-presidential candidate.

Why?

There was the issue of her health, obviously, but that wasn't the whole story. Perón was an army man: he knew how to control them and keep them happy, but what he was doing now was starting to be too much.

— it was the spring of hope —

On November 11, 1951, Juan Perón was triumphantly reelected to a second term. He won 63% of the vote and thanks to a changed voting system, the Peronist Party won 152 out of 166 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, along with every single governorship - all while singing a new song hailing their gran conductor (based on the tune of a football club anthem, of all things).

All seemed to be well, but not for much longer.

— it was the winter of despair —

By now, it was hard to keep Evita's illness a secret. In the election, she famously voted from her hospital bed. Her ovarian cancer continued to deteriorate and despite receiving the best treatment available (she was the first Argentine to undergo chemotherapy), in the morning of June 26, 1952, she passed away.

Today, the reaction of Argentines to her death is remembered as a massive outpouring of grief from ordinary people to whom she was a new Virgin Mary. Sure enough, her funeral put that of Maradona to shame and she was given the title of Spiritual Leader of the Nation by an act of Congress... but there was another side to it. Despite the great philantrophic work she accomplished, she was, rightly, denounced as a dangerous demagogue and a puppet of her husband. This turned into open celebrations of her death in some quarters.

It was ugly, but it was a sign of things to come.

[Estrella]

— we had everything before us —

At first, things seemed to be on right track after Perón's reelection. Industry was booming - the best example was the way Argentina kickstarted its domestic automotive industry with the IAME Justicialista. The ridiculously propagandistic name aside (the car even had a Justicialist logo on the back!), it showed how advanced Argentine technology was at the time and that the country had no problems competing with Europe or America. Living standards kept increasing, a new scientific insititute was founded, hundreds of kilometres of railways were built and Argentina's national debt was paid off.

— we had nothing before us —

Perón was always opposed by the old landowning classes and urban bourgeoisie, but his massive popularity and the fact that Army was, the Evita incident aside, still loyal to him meant that they couldn't do much but tolerate him. However, his increasingly autocratic style made him more enemies than he needed. First, he alienated the Church, then the new middle classes he helped create and, slowly but surely, the army as well.

— we were all going direct to heaven —

...or so might have thought the people marching towards the Cathedral of Buenos Aires on June 11, 1955. A record 200 thousand people attended that year's Corpus Christi procession. They weren't just Catholics - the whole opposition was united in solidarity with the Church, even traditionally secular groups like socialists and communists. They were incensed at Perón's latest round of anticlerical reforms that aimed to at last achieve not just separation of Church from the state, but eradicating its influence in society altogether. In fact, this very parade was prohibited by law, but that just helped to turn it into an angry protest that called for removing Perón from the presidency.

This, in turn, helped to infuriate his supporters, especially the most radical ones. The next day, June 12, the Catholic-turned-radical-Peronist Nationalist Liberation Alliance attempted to set the Cathedral on fire, prevented at last minute by a rally of Argentine Catholic Action, led Mons. Manuel Tato. The editor of a religious newspaper covering the events was arrested, Tato was stripped of his position and forced to leave the country.

Until now, Perón got away with things no previous President could dream of, but what he did this time was a step too far.

— we were all going direct to hell. —

Argentina wasn't involved in World War II, not even indirectly. Aside from a September 1939 incident in Río de la Plata, the country was isolated from the conflict. Fortunately, Argentina wasn't at war with her neighbours either, and so the Morón air base on outskirts of the capital remained unused, its planes staying in hangars - until Thurday, June 16, 1955.

On that day, a workers' rally was taking place in Plaza de Mayo. It was called by Peronist trade unions in response to an alleged burning of national flag during the June 11 Corpus Christi procession. More than that, icreasingly credible rumours of a coup were spreading. At midday, thirty aircraft took off from Morón and bombed the square and surrounding government buildings. More than 300 civillians were killed.

The country descended into something akin to a civil war. Rebel army units tried to capture Casa Rosada, but they were stopped after a series of firefights in surrounding streets. Despite anti-aircraft fire, planes from Morón carried out more bombing and strafing runs. That night, radical Peronists sought revenge: they burned down ten churches and looted two convents. In response, radical Catholics created armed commandos and called for overthrow of the President. Fighting broke out in the streets, infrastructure was sabotaged and buildings of Peronist organizations were bombed.

On September 16, General Eduardo Lonardi, commander of the Córdoba garrison, took over the city. He faced resistance from loyalist infrantry units and more than 100 people died in the fighting. The next day, rebel navy ships bombed the coastal city of Mar del Plata. Bahía Blanca was bombed and taken over by rebel marines, who were expelled by loyalist forces. On September 19, the coup seemed to be failing: Lonardi's troops in Córdoba were surrounded and a loyalist attack was imminent. However, in a show of force, the ships of rebel Admiral Isaac Rojas bombed Mar del Plata again, hitting fuel tanks in the port and causing great destruction.

This seemed to convince Perón that he had to go unless he wanted the country to descend into a full-blown civil war. Paraguyan dictator Alfredo Stroessner gave him a helping hand and on September 21, Perón fled aboard a Paraguayan gunboat and requested asylum in the country.

And it was over.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

In more recent news, a poll that covered a wide variety of topics but most relevant to us was the legislative election poll which came out (excluding no contests)


Larreta-Macri-Vidal-Bullrich(JxC): 28.5%
Fernandez-Fernandez-Massa-Kicillof(FdT): 26.8%
Espert-Milei-Murphy(Des/AL): 16.2%
Del Caño-Bregman(PTS): 3.4%

and in the event Macri and Larreta ran separately:

Fernandez-Fernandez-Massa-Kicilloff: 27.1%
Larreta-Vidal-Lousteau: 18.3%
Espert-Milei-Murphy: 14.9%
Macri-Bullrich: 14.4%
Del Caño-Bregman: 2.9%

If this poll is remotely accurate then things look very bad for Todos. A sizable portion (~15%) of their previous voters have jumped ship whereas basically nobody new is going their way. However, things don't look good for JxC either because Macri is widely disliked and the only major figure they have with any popularity is Larreta. Apparently Macri is so hated that in the scenario where he breaks away Larreta goes from getting 21% of the ex-Lavagna voters to 29%. In such a scenario they win considerably more votes (32.7% vs 28.5%) but of course depending on how the votes split that could lead to fewer seats split both ways.

The Espert-Milei-Murphy Axis continues its climb in polling numbers, and this time there are actually some half decent crosstabs. The weird trend where they poll strongest where JxC polls weakest continues; their best numbers are in the North (18.6%, where they poll just 1% short of passing JxC as the 2nd ranked party) and Patagonia (17.8%) while their worst are in the more Macrista center. Their strongest demographics (which they actually win outright) are Gen-Zs and ex-Lavagna voters while their worst are the elderly and ex-FdT voters (albeit they win several times more FdT voters than Fernandez wins JxC voters).

[PSOL]

Where exactly do the Trotskyists do well?

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Where exactly do the Trotskyists do well?

In relative terms they do best among Fernandez voters, Southerners (specifically Patagonians and people from Buenos Aires province) and Gen-Zs, albeit to a far lesser degree than the libertarians.

If you want to see for yourself just check the link and scroll to the very bottom. It's a little long and it's in Spanish but it's intuitive enough to understand.

[Crane]

Thank you for the background Estrella. Very interesting.

[PSOL]

Where exactly do the Trotskyists do well?

In relative terms they do best among Fernandez voters, Southerners (specifically Patagonians and people from Buenos Aires province) and Gen-Zs, albeit to a far lesser degree than the libertarians.

If you want to see for yourself just check the link and scroll to the very bottom. It's a little long and it's in Spanish but it's intuitive enough to understand.

Patagonians as in mainly Mixed/European ancestry and identification or Patagonian as indigenous such as the Selk’nam?

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Where exactly do the Trotskyists do well?

In relative terms they do best among Fernandez voters, Southerners (specifically Patagonians and people from Buenos Aires province) and Gen-Zs, albeit to a far lesser degree than the libertarians.

If you want to see for yourself just check the link and scroll to the very bottom. It's a little long and it's in Spanish but it's intuitive enough to understand.

Patagonians as in mainly Mixed/European ancestry and identification or Patagonian as indigenous such as the Selk’nam?

Patagonians as in people from the region of Patagonia.