Argentina General Discussion 🇦🇷

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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?

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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).

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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.

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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.

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Another poll, this one looks much better for Fernandez than the last. Despertar still holding at double digits.

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1337536851368964097

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https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1337956335279890434

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Somewhat off topic, but in 2003 the vote divided pretty starkly along geographic lines, with Menem dominating in the north, Kirchner in the south and Murphy picking up CABA and parts of Buenos Aires province. Did the vote split on personalist lines or was there something more at play?

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https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1369037109059813379

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In news that's apparently huge in Argentina but totally ignored internationally, there have been massive protests in the province of Formosa against the reimposition of lockdown measures that have turned into protests against the Peronist governor, Gildo Insfrán.

Formosa is the poorest of Argentina's provinces and has traditionally gone for Insfrán by Stalinesque margins. The generous interpretation of this is that this is simply the result of machine politics, as a majority of the population is employed by the state and Insfrán regularly hands out raises. The not so generous interpretation is that hired Paraguayans are brought in for elections and anyone who raises trouble, particularly journalists, face harassment from Peronist informants, officials and paramilitaries. Thanks to Argentina's federal system and the friendly government in Buenos Aires (though to be fair Macri didn't do anything when he had the chance either) the province has turned into something like a Venezuela within Argentina.

Naturally this can make reporting from Formosa somewhat unreliable. Some claim the protests explicitly seek Insfrán's removal while more Peronist friendly sources claim that most of the protesters denounce the "radical liberal terrorists":

In the march that took place this Saturday, much calmer - everything is less than what was experienced on Friday - the merchants, the people who want to work; were in charge of letting the opportunist politicians and the young people who showed the insignia of the Liberal Party know - they said they were the representatives of the thought of the economist Javier Milei in Formosa - to leave, that the march and the claim were denatured by their presence and claims.

A woman at the protest told NOVA : “Don't confuse things, what I want is for Gildo Insfrán to let us work normally, I voted for him and I would vote for him again. I am not a macrista, nor do I expect any of these characters to return; I just want the governor to reconsider and let us go back to work ”.

Someone else present in the place, questioned the presence in particular of the national deputy Ricardo Buryaile: “He is an opportunist, what is he doing here? Where have you been all this time? He comes to look for votes, but he is wrong. There is a new generation and this man is not in the plans ”.

No flags other than those that clamored to go back to work and free movement; the merchants set the course for the demonstration.

Even when one of the local “representatives” of the libertarians told them with megaphone in hand “that they couldn't be lukewarm now”, inciting violence, the majority began to tell him to leave, to withdraw.

In this Saturday's march, some older adults were even seen arguing with these young liberals who painted the streets and walls of some public buildings with party slogans and calling for the overthrow of a democratically elected government.

Of course things didn't go so well for those "young liberals" once the cops got a hold of them:

https://twitter.com/haterjoindachat/status/1368073120423309312

Insfrán went to Buenos Aires to schmooze some help from Fernández but the outrage forced Fernández to issue a denunciation of "institutional violence" and to promise investigations, though he stopped short of actually sanctioning or denouncing Insfrán by name.

Some of the more hawkish JxC politicians like Patricia Bullrich have already made appearances at the protests. While I can't confirm it I've seen a lot of chatter that Milei attempted to enter via Paraguay and was blocked, which would make some sense considering how pro Insfrán media outlets have portrayed him as some kind of terrorist mastermind

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Personally, i believe this protests will fizzle out once Insfran decides to back down and allow bussineses to reopen, and everything will go back to normal. He will probably rule until he retires (or dies), there's no way in hell that the current government betrays their "querido compañero", and i sincerely doubt any future non-peronist president will ever have the balls to intervene the province. An even if a federal intevention took place, it would end up like Santiago del Estero, some other caudillo would eventually took his place, just like Gerardo Zamora took Juarez place. The economic structure of the province (which is based on clientelism and dependency of the state), combined with the tradicional political culture (which is very iliberal and undemocratic), makes it fertile ground for autocrats to appear .

I can't speak for how likely it is that this leads to Insfrán's downfall but I suspect that for every day the protests continue FdT's prospects worsen nationally. Argentines might put up with a certain degree of corruption but surely even Peronists draw the line at policemen chanting slogans about their governor that wouldn't be out of place in a third world dictatorship:

In other news, the liberal fronts of Espert and López Murphy have agreed to merge for the upcoming elections. Up until recently there was widespread speculation that López Murphy was going to join with JxC which would have undermined Espert and Milei. This gives Macristas serious reason for concern, since their predominance is almost entirely premised on Argentina's accursed D'Hondt system punishing small vote splitters heavily, but a strong performance from the Liberals (Murphy managed 16% back in 2003's presidential election, though of course the political situation was far different then) would wipe out that justification and potentially shake things up for 2023.

I'm particularly interested in whether the new front (apparently called "Vamos") runs candidates in the smaller provinces and how well they do. Between Recrear, UCeDé and the Libertarians they should have enough of an infrastructure to at least run candidates. By conventional analysis at first I thought there was no chance they'd get anywhere since liberals always get crushed in feudal states but nearly every poll I saw with crosstabs claimed they overperform in the North compared to PBA or CABA. This could just be a function of how hard it is to poll such places (after all, if you polled the Holy Roman Empire you'd probably hit a lot of minor princes and knights as opposed to peasants) but then the fact that not only do libertarians exist in Formosa but that there are enough of them to be scapegoated by Insfrán's lackeys made me think that maybe there really is something there. Of course probably I'm just being optimistic and FdT sweeps the provinces as usual

Besides that they've agreed to hold primaries which probably won't matter as much for the legislative elections - López Murphy will have to fight either Espert in PBA or Milei in CABA for the front spot but to my understanding he could still qualify in a lower spot - but in 2023 it will be very interesting to see who gets nominated for the presidential ticket. All three represent significantly different positions and have very different bases of support so I'm curious as to whose is strongest.

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In other news, the liberal fronts of Espert and López Murphy have agreed to merge for the upcoming elections. Up until recently there was widespread speculation that López Murphy was going to join with JxC which would have undermined Espert and Milei. This gives Macristas serious reason for concern, since their predominance is almost entirely premised on Argentina's accursed D'Hondt system punishing small vote splitters heavily, but a strong performance from the Liberals (Murphy managed 16% back in 2003's presidential election, though of course the political situation was far different then) would wipe out that justification and potentially shake things up for 2023.

This is a smart move, the only way for liberals to become a serious option for voters (and stop being such a joke) is to have a single, coherent message in a unified and recognizable political force. It's basically what the trotskysts did, yes they still are kind of a meme, but they're doing a lot better than they used to before they formed the Left Front.
Though liberals should only focus on the big provinces, Bs As, CABA, Cordoba, Mendoza, maybe Santa Fe, the rest would be a lost cause and a waste of their time.

Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like in Argentina a party that polled strongly in the smallest regions could end up well over the national threshold but below the provincial qualification to the point where in some provinces you could get over 30% of the vote and still get no seat in a supposedly "proportional" system.

Poland also uses D'Hondt and while Poland has some degree of the same issue (PSL won 2% more votes than Konfederacja but ended up winning triple the seats) but as far as I know there aren't any cases of parties literally failing to win seats after crossing the threshold otherwise. I guess it works well for caudillos; is the system intentionally designed like this and why didn't Macri do anything when he had the chance?

Also, in the latest news from Formosa it turns out that about a hundred pregnant Wichí are hiding in the mountains to avoid having their babies taken by the police. Yet still no international coverage; apparently reality TV tier drama about the British royal family is more important. What a world

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In terms of electoral reform just voting on all legislative seats every election would go a long way towards making the results more representative. A single D'Hondt election with 5 seats at stake is better than two such elections with 3 and 2 seats at stake. Even better would be to increase the number of seats by 50% to somewhat reduce the disproportionate power of smaller provinces and/or to implement a system of MMP like they have in New Zealand or Bolivia.

I will note however that in theory if you believe the meme tier polls that have the libertarians polling at 15% or so (which I will admit it is a big stretch); that all kind of implodes much like how it imploded here after 2015.

Yeah, I wouldn't trust those polls, outside of the internet, liberals remain a pretty nieche group. I doubt they'll manage to seriously compete with JxC, if the last three elections are indicative of anything, we seem to be going the opposite route of Spain, we're consolidating into a two-party system (again).

So for Espert's libertarians it will matter a lot whether they are at 15% (which would give them a chance in most of Argentina's provinces), at 10% (which would give them a fighting chance only in the top 7 provinces plus perhaps a couple of particular strongholds in provincial Argentina) or at 5% (which would give them a chance only in CABA, Buenos Aires province, Córdoba and Santa Fe)

This gets accentuated since I imagine the libertarians are only really popular in the rich parts of Greater Buenos Aires and any other big Argentinian cities but not really in rural areas?

Yes, they poll better in the bigger, urban provinces, among the middle and upper class. In rural areas they would only do well (or close to well) in the central part of the country, which tends to vote for non-peronist candidates.

I know the stereotype is that they only exist in CABA and PBA but both the polls (which, granted, have a bad record in Argentina) and the actual results of Espert last time suggest otherwise.

Looking only at Espert's actual results, CABA isn't even in his top 5 provinces. The first is the southernmost province of Tierra del Fuego where he got 2.8%, though TdF is of course tiny, unrepresentative and populated by penguin researchers. The next three in order are the next southernmost provinces of Patagonia in exact south-to-north geographic order (excluding Santa Cruz which is the single lowest, lol): Chubut (2.4%), Neuquén (2.0%) and Río Negro (2.0%). Then there's Jujuy in the northwest where he picked up 1.92%, beating out his CABA performance of 1.87%. In PBA Espert actually did worse than average, picking up a smaller portion of the vote than in such bastions of liberalism as La Rioja and Salta.

Meanwhile while polls may be unreliable and most don't even record the geographic vote distribution the ones I've seen nearly always put their highest numbers in the North and Patagonia (another example). The only other consistent features are that they perform best with the youngest voters (18-24) and according to JxC's internal polls Espert does best among the upper middle class while Milei's base is made up of youth and lower middle class voters.

I don't really have a great explanation for why that is but the best I can think of is that in provinces where JxC's infrastructure is weak to nonexistent some number of non voters and would-be JxC voters are more willing to vote Espert than in places where "it's Macri or K" is drilled into your head by everyone around you. I've noticed that their strongest denunciations inevitably come from JxC supporters, so it could be that the ceiling and floor are both lower in their best provinces than in places where the opposition is nonexistent.

Of course thanks to the aforementioned electoral system if this actually turns out to be the case then they'll have an absurdly inefficient vote so I'm kind of hoping I'm wrong on this one. If all the votes come from CABA and PBA then vote splitting isn't really a problem, especially in the former.

Also, at least so far it looks like the madness in Formosa hasn't just been brushed under the rug. Insfrán is literally the most despised political figure in Argentina with 14% approval to 50% disapproval so it doesn't look like the Peronist propaganda is effective. The approval of every figure in cabinet including Fernández has fallen and the voting intention for FdT has fallen to a statistical tie.

In other news, Fernández went to Chubut to inspect the damage of the recent massive fires across Patagonia (another undercovered news story unfortunately) and on two occasions angry mobs literally hurled rocks at his entourage. Keep in mind this is a province that FdT won with over 50% of the vote.

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General polling average:

https://twitter.com/Datoworld/status/1379419268513665026

Poll of Santa Fe Province:

https://twitter.com/Datoworld/status/1379456799603052544

Not sure why the Libertarians and UNITE are polled separately since to my understanding they're part of the same front but whatever. The national polling average looks very bad for Todos but the Santa Fe poll looks disastrous for JxC. In theory the combined AL/FV vote of 11.6% is pretty close to the threshold to win a seat but if that overperformance extends to the smaller neighbouring provinces then it could cost the Macri-Larreta-Bullrich axis dearly.

My guess is that they try to organize some sort of coordination in the smaller provinces through the PASO to avoid that. In the mid sized provinces like Santa Fe, Cordoba and Mendoza though I suspect FV will run separately if they don't make a national pact of some sort.

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General polling average:

https://twitter.com/Datoworld/status/1379419268513665026

Poll of Santa Fe Province:

https://twitter.com/Datoworld/status/1379456799603052544

Not sure why the Libertarians and UNITE are polled separately since to my understanding they're part of the same front but whatever. The national polling average looks very bad for Todos but the Santa Fe poll looks disastrous for JxC. In theory the combined AL/FV vote of 11.6% is pretty close to the threshold to win a seat but if that overperformance extends to the smaller neighbouring provinces then it could cost the Macri-Larreta-Bullrich axis dearly.

My guess is that they try to organize some sort of coordination in the smaller provinces through the PASO to avoid that. In the mid sized provinces like Santa Fe, Cordoba and Mendoza though I suspect FV will run separately if they don't make a national pact of some sort.

Esperar only "rented" the Unite name after having legal issues with a few other parties that he had so "rented" as his actual party didn't have legal personhood yet.
 Unite within Despertar and SF Unite have no actual relation with each other, as the party is just a rented label founded by some largely unknown nutjob, Alejandro Bonacci, with far-right (and not exactly in the libertarian meaning of term) connections
Unite had a very strong performance in Santa Fe in the 2019 provincial elections, under the "leadership" of former gossip-show starlet turned pro-life activist Amalia Granata (who also "rented" the name) getting 16.6% of the votes for provincial diputados (state representatives) and 6 out of  50 seats
Also, national and provincial coalitions are often fairly unrelated
e.g. The Socialist Party ran in 2019 within Consenso Federal for the national elections but with Juntos por el Cambio in Buenos Aires City

What a mess. So was the Unite that ran in the 2017 legislative election Despertar Unite or SF Unite?

Besides that, how much would you say the strong 2019 provincial performance was the result of personalism and how much was from actual strong pro-life sentiment? I've heard some rumours that Gómez Centurión is in negotiation with Espert and Milei. Such a front could conceivably fight for sectors that the Kirchnerists and UCR would otherwise avoid. They could even change their name from Vamos to VámoNOS for the stupid pun factor.

In bad news for Espert and Milei, though, they're in danger of losing certification because it turns out UCeDe took being a zombie party too literally and nominated a guy that has been dead for 4 years to leadership. How a party led by an actual corpse has wider representation than parties with actual popular support is beyond me, the more I see of the intricacies of the Argentine system the less it makes sense

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https://twitter.com/Datoworld/status/1383172749183574022

https://twitter.com/Datoworld/status/1384279724852011019

https://twitter.com/Datoworld/status/1382151154067443712

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1383097763043418118

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https://twitter.com/Datoworld/status/1387414918329163777

https://twitter.com/Datoworld/status/1387529310056161284

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https://twitter.com/qrcapital/status/1403425291826044935

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Today, Macri gave an interview to La Nación. He mostly gives correct observations about incompetence of the current government, but, er, what the hell is this:

People go and invest. They have a sleeve [sic] and buy a flat in countries like United States where if someone occupies your flat, the judge doesn't ask you if you are South American. He asks for your papers and if you are the owner, he evicts them. Here, if you don't have a contact, a friend, they discuss whether to evict you or not. You get a fake Mapuche in the south and he steals your house, burns it down and the State supports him.

You won't be surprised to find out that he did a llegamos de los barcos three years before Alberto.

He's referring to the ongoing crisis in Patagonia where "Mapuches" arbitrarily seize land, clear cut the old growth forests for firewood, beat people up and torch buildings indiscriminately. I put "Mapuches" in quotes because most have basically no connection to the actual local tribes and are more akin to activist LARPers than actual natives reclaiming seized land. They aren't carefully identifying and demanding their ancestral land, they're taking whatever a 20 year old shaman on mushrooms identifies as "sacred land".

Regardless of Macri's past bozo eruptions he's right about RAM and the like.

In parliamentary news, the government managed to somehow slip on a banana peel and fall flat on their faces by failing to pass a budget, not winning the votes of the friendliest independent Peronist caucuses or even the left. Apparently zero effort was made to negotiate with anyone or even in proofreading the budget, which referenced numbers that were years out of date.

But then, not to be outdone, the opposition failed to block a tax increase by a single vote because three Juntos deputies were absent: one had a positive COVID test and couldn't enter (I guess remote voting isn't a thing), one was in Germany for undisclosed reasons and the last was enjoying a trip to Disneyworld in Miami with her family. JxC leadership then unanimously - except Bullrich - voted against sanctioning any of the deputies, and as if trying to prove the "caste" rhetoric true also gave Todos the support to extend the term limits of mayors in Buenos Aires.

FIT-U has generally done well so far, with the defeat of the mining bill in Chubut representing a relatively popular and successful wedge issue for them that the other parties mostly ignored. Though they haven't always covered themselves in glory; Vilca made himself the subject of many memes when he responded to Milei's speech on the budget with something to the effect of "economists use big words to confuse us!"

On that note, the liberals initially seemed set on shooting themselves in the foot too. The split into two separate blocks caused both to fall short of the minimum to participate in committees. Milei caused further outrage when he missed the first day to hold a rally in Rosario and JxC partisans were quick to pounce to call him out for skipping work.

But then the liberals were all there to vote when it counted so that backfired. Milei's inaugural speech is already the most viewed on the official chamber of deputies Youtube channel and including mirrors just from Youtube and Twitter has millions of views in less than two weeks while Espert isn't far behind. So they're also back on the uptrend after a dip with the goal of expanding into the interior, and considering the impressive turnout even under unfavourable circumstances in the heart of traditional Argentine leftism they might actually pull it off.

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1475293346411302919

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The past few months have basically seen the same trend of inflation rising and both major coalitions fraying at the seams. The divisions really came to a head when the latest vote for an IMF agreement came up: JxC and slightly over half of the government voted in favour while the Kirchnerist wing of Todos plus FIT-U and the liberals/libertarians voted against.

So with FdT divided one may think the opposition could capitalize, but Juntos is almost as split, with Macri and his hawks increasingly sidelined within the coalition by Larreta's PRO doves and Radical governors in the interior like Gerardo Morales. Larreta seems to figure that he just needs to not screw up to be the President-apparent in 2023, and on that note he's probably right.

The biggest beneficiary of the division so far have been the liberals and Milei, whose support has tripled since the election, with particular growth in the interior (the governor of Corrientes, a province Milei has yet to visit, sounded the alarm that his support there already exceeds 20%. Depending on the poll his approval is either among the highest of any current Argentine political figure or is the highest period. He's more trusted by 2019 Macri voters to end inflation and somehow nearly 20% of Fernández voters feel the same.

https://twitter.com/agustinromm/status/1507426545773686784

Since the major parties have avoided picking political battles Milei has managed to repeatedly seize the conversation. His salary raffles might one of the most cost efficient campaigning tools ever, with over 2 million sign ups at this point. First the raffle alone generated publicity, then the opposition accusing him of populism, then the government launched an "investigation" and somehow a Kirchnerist organizer won the first raffle.

Now he's shaking things up with advocacy for dollarization. He coupled it up by officially declaring his intention to run for President in 2023 outside of JxC, but that he was willing to work with Juntos hawks like Bullrich and Macri...if they were to leave and join LLA instead.

snip

Certainly there are Mapuches with legitimate grievances throughout Patagonia, but the scammers chopping down trees in a national park to sell to tourists are not among them, nor are the folks from RAM trying to carve a new state out of the southern provinces led by a Chilean citizen. They don't have overwhelming popular support or even substantial popular support; they've been denounced by the actual local Mapuches and it only took two dozen Gauchos to end their arson spree, hardly an overwhelming popular uprising.

Incidentally, you're right that any Mapuches in Argentina have been relocated far from their ancestral lands because their ancestral lands are in Araucania. If a bunch of Burgundy Cross waving loons started claiming national parks in the name of Spain they'd have about as much justification but I doubt you'd demand we respect the Spanish cultural values of claiming to own all of the Americas by decree of the Pope.

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Racist SNIP

And where did I said that it was a popular uprising with broad support or that their claims were right? I took issue with your extremely offensive characterization of machis as "someone on mooshrooms". If you are not going to engage with what I actually say, then abstain to comment on the topic.

I'm explaining exactly what happened without embellishment: a teenager on drugs identifying as a "shaman" and her friends claimed ownership of a national park on the basis of visions produced by those drugs. That isn't "offensive", that's factually what happened. If someone described FGM in direct terms would you get offended on behalf of the disrespect of the "offensive characterization" of a traditional cultural practice and start calling people racist?

Plus, please don't go over that rabbit hole of "where Mapuche came from" (which you are using to casually deny the crimes of the Conquista del Desierto btw). I'm sure you are going to eventually start spitting the racist and discredited narratives about how the Mapuche genocided the Tehuelche or something.

Jeesh, and you talk about me ignoring what you're saying?

The vast majority of the territory claimed by RAM is not populated by people who identify as Mapuches and a sizable portion (like Nahuel Huapi National Park) was beyond the reach of any Mapuche speaker even before the Conquest. That makes their claims absurd on the face even before the denunciations of the actual local Mapuche communities, no "genocide denial" necessary.

The vast majority of Mapuches actually indigenous to Argentina are Tehuelches and other groups that adopted Mapuche language and cultural traditions. They weren't "genocided" but treating them as identical to Chilean Mapuches is practically assuming that they were. These specific peoples can actually claim to be living in their ancestral homelands (or to have been excluded from them in the past) but that doesn't make those lands "Mapuche ancestral land" any more than some Amazonian tribe adopting Spanish culture would make their land "Spanish ancestral land". These people certainly have plenty of legitimate grievances with the Argentine and provincial governments but, again, they've repeatedly denounced RAM and the national park LARPers.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

So Macri went to visit Trump

https://twitter.com/mauriciomacri/status/1512144390931849217

The reason? Who knows...

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1512228435023867905