March 1st. 2026: Buenos Aires.
Donald Trump gave his State of the Union speech (SOTU) on February 24th. Extremely long and boring, the speech was chock full of lies and childish attacks on unbelievers. This has become par for the course with Trump. In his SOTU address in front of congress Donald Trump was careful that all of his Republican followers were present to support him there to outnumber the opposition many of whom had decided not to attend. Milei too stacked the deck with loyal ministers and deputies but, since he only has a little over 40% direct support in congress, he filled the space with visitors, mostly young fans and with yellow armbands like those given out at the door of a concert or a rave. Trump’s Republicans control more than 50% of the US House of Representatives but if polls are an indication he will lose a third of those seats in the November mid-term elections especially if his latest unconstitutional war for Israel in Iran goes as badly as it could.
Just five days later it was Javier Milei’s turn to speak to his nation in Buenos Aires. Both speeches (Trump’s and Milei’s) had striking commonalities with a deeply divided congress screaming bloody murder at each other and a president belittling his political opponents demonstrating a smug and ugly autocratic cruelty.
The Argentine military was evident in the streets in front of the Argentine Congress before Milei’s speech. A few military men carried rifles in army fatigues working security, but the majority were on horseback in blue uniforms holding swords. The presidential guard is called the Granaderos. These very young (and extremely underpaid) military boys travel on horseback, or goose-step for tourists between the President’s pink house and the catholic cathedral. Their full name is the Mounted Grenadiers of General San Martín. They guard the president and the tomb of general San Martín (in the cathedral). San Martin was an Argentine revolutionary hero, who under Bolivar and fighting with Sucre and O’Higgins destroyed the last South American Spanish occupation forces in Ayacucho, now Peru.
The Grenadier’s horses had been left waiting way too long in the evening heat and by the time Milei eventually arrived the inevitable result was an avenue full of horse shit and sweaty bored soldiers. A spattering of Milei fans came to the security barriers, maybe one for every three people handling security. The avenue on which Milei was to pass is called Avenue de Mayo (named after May 1810 the first Argentine revolutionary revolt against Spanish imperialism) which was crushed by Spain. In 1819 they had more luck. Avenue de Mayo connects the Pink House and the Federal Congress two Kilometres away. Some had come to salute Milei’s automobile, not all in a friendly manner. Shouts of “sorrete” rang from apartment windows along the route –a local greeting connecting their president with the materiale left in the streets by his guards horses. A few older members of the public in their Sunday best were true fans and waved to him as he passed.
Young poorer Argentines were much less intent on welcoming their president. Instead they were busy trying to find a place to sleep where the police would not take them into custody. As I walked home through the dark streets next to the Congress plaza young men collected cardboard for their beds beside overflowing trashcans three blocks from where Milei was speaking. Homeless numbers have exploded since Milei took power with just the Communa 1 of the city –which includes the Congress– having as many homeless on its streets as there were a few years back in all 15 communas of the city. Since then Buenos Aires City Government has stopped counting the city’s homeless.
Milei’s speech, like Trump’s, was full of attacks against political opponents, lambasting them with evident enjoyment. Trumps was on the defensive for hateful treatment by ICE of American residents without citizenship –and for killing a few US citizens protecting non-documented Americans with paramilitary excess on the streets of Minnesota. He went on the offensive accusing his critics of being unAmerican. He then asked congress people to reaffirm a fundamental principle saying: If you agree with this statement then stand up and show your support… He then came out with a childish with-me-or-against-me parlour game “The first duty of the US government is to support the US citizen over the illegal alien” he blurted out then, as his fans rose to salute him with applause to show their support, Trump twisted his grimacing head like an owl smirking at his opponents in congress waiting minutes while his sycophants stood tall applauding him staring down the democrats (who stayed in their seats). Trump then told the opposition they should be ashamed of themselves for not standing up signalling representative Ilhan Omar Rashida as unAmerican (because she came to the country from Africa as a child) then later calling for her to be “institutionalised”. The cruel jock-like response of the Republican Trump fans was exactly equivalent to the “Li-ber-tad” jeering of the Milei fans except in Washington the chant went: “U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A…” to drown out democrat reactions to Trump’s fascistic speech Ilhan’s comments included.
In Milei’s case he opted for direct slander stopping his speech to call the opposition: “Ignorant cockroaches”, “assassins”, “thieves” and “corrupt beasts”. The shouting from all sides was reminiscent of a beer brawl which is not unusual in congress but Milei monopolised the microphone so it was entirely one-sided. Commenting on Milei’s speech the deputy and presidential candidate Juan Grabois told journalists after Milei’s speech that it was cowardly of the President to heckle his opponents without giving them a voice. For someone who also monopolises control over the police and military, he said, referring to the militarised locked-down control of the streets outside, to shout down deputies who did not agree with what he said. Grabois referred to this as “cowardice in power”, going further to say that Milei was making propaganda (or even a spectacle) of sadism. The suffering of the other was fair play now to autocratic leaders like Milei, now all cruelty is permitted, Grabois added.
Grabois pointed out that in the philosophy of German Naziism in the late nineteen twenties and thirties this was commonplace too. “You just have to switch the word communists with Kirchnerite Peronist (or Kuka) an ugly word short for cockroach. Kuka refers to Peronist party supporters of the slightly left of centre former president Christina Kirchner family, who are very far from communists. the Kukas are nationalist social democrats but they do at least believe that climate change is real.
Javier Milei in his campaign for the presidency claimed that the climate was changing but it had nothing to do with human activity rather it was a natural ice-age cycle. His ignorant statements are 100% wrong but by his own lying logic they exonerate him and his government from having to take any action on climate change. Milei in his speech belittled environmentalists for resisting mining in glaciers (the mountain sources for irrigating rivers). Rather than belittling climate activists (which Trump really likes to do) Trump decided it best not to even mention climate at all in his speech rather he mentioned the positive aspects of oil and gas (as did Milei).
Within the Congress building Milei balconies of the Congress were
filled with young rich far right Milei fines –his own vacuous fans.
Milei’s own fans from his La Libertad Avanza (LLA) party libertarian parties and their guests who filled the building screaming “lib-er-tad, lib-er-tad, lib-er-tad, lib-er-tad” to drown out Milei’s critics celebrating his cruelty when he insulted them in his speech. The Milei speech sounded more like a drunken rugby club than a legislative branch. Milei ended his speech with his signatory “Viva la libertad carajo!” (up with liberty damn it!). Then he called to make the America’s Great Again (the Argentine MAGA) in his stammering English.
As the speech ended the Congressional announcer noted “we have listened to the speech by Dr. Javier Milei” which was itself a fallacy. Javier Milei may claim to have a PhD but he is no doctor and he doesn’t have a PhD (having just a masters certificate in economics from a low grade private college). Milei received an honorary ‘doctorate’ from one of the members of the audience whose private university, ESEADE.ESEADE however is not certified to give out doctorates to their students –or to their non-students in Milei’s case. Javi doesn’t care, he wrote that he had a doctorate from the University of California on the cover of his latest plagiarised book. In truth Javi had never been to the University of California. His publisher recalled the English edition of Javi’s book for legal reasons.
The post-Truth Milei family are not known for their morals but he definitely spoke a lot about economic morality in his talk while stealing from the state and the private sector (charging for access) and bribing unscrupulous congresspeople to buy their votes and push through their far right legislative changes. Wheer are the morals in that?
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