Argentina 2023 election

[Aurelius2]

What was so appealing about him?  He seems like a libertarian and always thought libertarianism only benefits very wealthy in society while bad for everyone else?

Argentina has 143% inflation. Massa, the candidate who Milei was running against, has been economy minister for the past year and a half as inflation has surged. Massa spent $8 billion handing out goodies to voters in advance of the election, and notably promised to abolish taxation entirely, while also scaling up such goodies and expanding welfare and handouts in general. He's the latest of the Peronists who have spent decades running Argentina into the ground, and the voters finally decided they'd had enough.

I get why people wanted Massa out, but why not vote for Bullrich who would move away from Peronism but not go for something crazy like libertarianism.

Bullrich is a neoliberal who is perceived as the candidate for rich people. Most of Argentina is poor.

[mileslunn]

What was so appealing about him?  He seems like a libertarian and always thought libertarianism only benefits very wealthy in society while bad for everyone else?

Argentina has 143% inflation. Massa, the candidate who Milei was running against, has been economy minister for the past year and a half as inflation has surged. Massa spent $8 billion handing out goodies to voters in advance of the election, and notably promised to abolish taxation entirely, while also scaling up such goodies and expanding welfare and handouts in general. He's the latest of the Peronists who have spent decades running Argentina into the ground, and the voters finally decided they'd had enough.

I get why people wanted Massa out, but why not vote for Bullrich who would move away from Peronism but not go for something crazy like libertarianism.

Bullrich is a neoliberal who is perceived as the candidate for rich people. Most of Argentina is poor.

Milei will be even worse for poor as he basically wants to gut government and pretty tough to help poor if you gut government.

[Oryxslayer]

What was so appealing about him?  He seems like a libertarian and always thought libertarianism only benefits very wealthy in society while bad for everyone else?

Argentina has 143% inflation. Massa, the candidate who Milei was running against, has been economy minister for the past year and a half as inflation has surged. Massa spent $8 billion handing out goodies to voters in advance of the election, and notably promised to abolish taxation entirely, while also scaling up such goodies and expanding welfare and handouts in general. He's the latest of the Peronists who have spent decades running Argentina into the ground, and the voters finally decided they'd had enough.

I get why people wanted Massa out, but why not vote for Bullrich who would move away from Peronism but not go for something crazy like libertarianism.

Bullrich is a neoliberal who is perceived as the candidate for rich people. Most of Argentina is poor.

The real answer to this is just Milei had momentum. Before the PASO primary in August, JxC was looking as the expected runoff candidate and therefore likely winner. But then Milei outperformed polls and came in first during that dry run. So suddenly all the voters who could theoretically vote for either Bullrich or Milei, as long as the Peronists lost, saw him as the most viable candidate. And that's when it really became Milei vs Massa.

[OSR stands with Israel]

What was so appealing about him?  He seems like a libertarian and always thought libertarianism only benefits very wealthy in society while bad for everyone else?

Argentina has 143% inflation. Massa, the candidate who Milei was running against, has been economy minister for the past year and a half as inflation has surged. Massa spent $8 billion handing out goodies to voters in advance of the election, and notably promised to abolish taxation entirely, while also scaling up such goodies and expanding welfare and handouts in general. He's the latest of the Peronists who have spent decades running Argentina into the ground, and the voters finally decided they'd had enough.

I get why people wanted Massa out, but why not vote for Bullrich who would move away from Peronism but not go for something crazy like libertarianism.

Bullrich is a neoliberal who is perceived as the candidate for rich people. Most of Argentina is poor.

Milei will be even worse for poor as he basically wants to gut government and pretty tough to help poor if you gut government.

I mean the entire point of Shock Therapy is despite the fact that it increases pain in the short run, it greatly benefits the nation in the long run.

[mileslunn]

What was so appealing about him?  He seems like a libertarian and always thought libertarianism only benefits very wealthy in society while bad for everyone else?

Argentina has 143% inflation. Massa, the candidate who Milei was running against, has been economy minister for the past year and a half as inflation has surged. Massa spent $8 billion handing out goodies to voters in advance of the election, and notably promised to abolish taxation entirely, while also scaling up such goodies and expanding welfare and handouts in general. He's the latest of the Peronists who have spent decades running Argentina into the ground, and the voters finally decided they'd had enough.

I get why people wanted Massa out, but why not vote for Bullrich who would move away from Peronism but not go for something crazy like libertarianism.

Bullrich is a neoliberal who is perceived as the candidate for rich people. Most of Argentina is poor.

Milei will be even worse for poor as he basically wants to gut government and pretty tough to help poor if you gut government.

I mean the entire point of Shock Therapy is despite the fact that it increases pain in the short run, it greatly benefits the nation in the long run.

That was thinking in past, but nowadays more and more questioning whether supply side economics and Washington consensus really works.  View is it increases prosperity, but almost all flows to those at top and does little for those in middle or bottom despite promise.

[Peeperkorn]

Milei will be even worse for poor as he basically wants to gut government and pretty tough to help poor if you gut government.

What's the point of having government "help" if it's going to be financed by crazily increasing the money supply? The "help" that you may receive will always be too little too late compared to inflation.

We are talking about Argentina here, not Switzerland. Government is particularly inefficient and extremely corrupt.

Milei promised that he would begin cutting the clientelist apparatus and not welfare programs (reasonable if he wants to stay more than two months in power) but I don't think that would be easy.

[Edu]

What's the point of having government "help" if it's going to be financed by crazily increasing the money supply? The "help" that you may receive will always be too little too late compared to inflation.

We are talking about Argentina here, not Switzerland. Government is particularly inefficient and extremely corrupt.

Milei promised that he would begin cutting the clientelist apparatus and not welfare programs (reasonable if he wants to stay more than two months in power) but I don't think that would be easy.

Only a moron or a bad faith actor would look at the bloated bureaucracy and wasteful spending in Argentina and say: "yeah, that's fine, I want more of that"

[mileslunn]

Peronism may not work but libertarianism is not solution so why didn't Bullrush do better as would have been more sensible replacement?

[Mike88]

An interesting stat about this election is that this is the 5th general election in a row in Argentina, where a woman is either elected President or Vice-President.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Peronism may not work but libertarianism is not solution so why didn't Bullrush do better as would have been more sensible replacement?

She's Argentina's Nikki Haley, I guess. Lacks the personality that animates the right.

[John Dule]

Peronism may not work but libertarianism is not solution so why didn't Bullrush do better as would have been more sensible replacement?

Libertarianism is the solution to almost every problem. The issue is that it doesn't give anyone freebies they didn't earn, so it's not particularly popular.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

What was so appealing about him?  He seems like a libertarian and always thought libertarianism only benefits very wealthy in society while bad for everyone else?

Argentina has 143% inflation. Massa, the candidate who Milei was running against, has been economy minister for the past year and a half as inflation has surged. Massa spent $8 billion handing out goodies to voters in advance of the election, and notably promised to abolish taxation entirely, while also scaling up such goodies and expanding welfare and handouts in general. He's the latest of the Peronists who have spent decades running Argentina into the ground, and the voters finally decided they'd had enough.

I get why people wanted Massa out, but why not vote for Bullrich who would move away from Peronism but not go for something crazy like libertarianism.

Bullrich is a neoliberal who is perceived as the candidate for rich people. Most of Argentina is poor.

Milei will be even worse for poor as he basically wants to gut government and pretty tough to help poor if you gut government.

What good does one of the Peronist goodies like a partial public transit subsidy do if food is unaffordable?

The calculus I think a lot of voters made was simply that their buying power would increase with less inflation even if spending also has to be axed.

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, the situation in Argentina currently is so bad that normal "rational" assessments maybe don't fly.