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    La lección más importante de la victoria de Javier Milei

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    La elección como presidente de Argentina de Javier Milei —un personaje peculiar, fanfarrón de cabello indomable, con cinco mastines clonados y una costumbre de comunión psíquica con la difunta mascota que les dio origen— ha suscitado un gran debate sobre la verdadera naturaleza del populismo de derecha en nuestra era de descontento general.En Milei hay muchas manifestaciones de una política trumpiana: la energía extravagante y poco convencional, la crítica a las élites corruptas, los ataques a la izquierda, el apoyo de los conservadores sociales y religiosos. Al mismo tiempo, en política económica es mucho más un libertario doctrinario que un mercantilista o populista al estilo Trump, es una versión más extrema de Barry Goldwater y Paul Ryan que un defensor del gasto público y los aranceles. Mientras que el movimiento al que derrotó, la formación peronista que gobernó Argentina durante la mayor parte del siglo XXI, es de hecho más nacionalista y populista en lo económico, pues llegó al poder tras la crisis financiera de 2001 que puso fin al experimento más notable de Argentina con la economía neoliberal.La divergencia entre Trump y Milei puede interpretarse de varias maneras. Una lectura es que el estilo del populismo de derecha es la esencia del asunto, que su sustancia política es negociable siempre que presente figuras que prometan el renacimiento nacional y encarnen algún tipo de rebelión bufonesca, por lo general masculina, contra las normas del progresismo cultural.Otra lectura es que, sí, la política es bastante negociable, pero en realidad hay profundas afinidades ideológicas entre el nacionalismo económico de derecha y lo que podría llamarse paleolibertarismo, a pesar de que no coinciden en cuestiones específicas. En términos estadounidenses, esto significa que el trumpismo lo anticiparon de diferentes maneras Ross Perot y Ron Paul; en términos globales, significa que cabe esperar que los partidos de la derecha populista se muevan constantemente entre tendencias de regulación y libertarias, dependiendo del contexto económico y de los vaivenes políticos.He aquí una tercera interpretación: mientras que el descontento popular debilitó el consenso neoliberal de las décadas de 1990 y 2000 en todo el mundo desarrollado, la era del populismo está creando alineamientos muy distintos en la periferia latinoamericana que en el núcleo euro-estadounidense.En Europa Occidental y Estados Unidos, ahora se ve de manera sistemática a un partido de centroizquierda de las clases profesionales enfrentarse a una coalición populista y de la clase trabajadora de derecha. Los partidos de centroizquierda se han vuelto más progresistas en política económica en comparación con la era de Bill Clinton y Tony Blair, pero se han movido mucho más a la izquierda en cuestiones culturales, sin perder su liderazgo influyente y meritocrático, su sabor neoliberal. Y, en su mayoría, han sido capaces de contener, derrotar o cooptar a aspirantes de izquierda más radicales: Joe Biden al superar a Bernie Sanders en las elecciones primarias demócratas de 2020, Keir Starmer al marginar al corbynismo en el Partido Laborista británico y Emmanuel Macron al forzar a los izquierdistas franceses a votar a su favor en la segunda vuelta contra Marine Le Pen con la estrategia del menor de los males.Por su parte, la derecha populista ha conseguido muchas veces moderar sus impulsos libertarios para apartar a los votantes de clase baja de la coalición progresista, dando lugar a una política de centroderecha que suele favorecer ciertos tipos de proteccionismo y redistribución. Eso podría significar una defensa trumpiana de los programas de prestaciones sociales, los tibios intentos de los conservadores de Boris Johnson de invertir en el desatendido norte de Inglaterra o el gasto en prestaciones familiares de Viktor Orbán en Hungría, así como la recién desbancada coalición populista en Polonia.Te puedes imaginar que el abismo entre estas dos coaliciones mantendrá a Occidente en un estado de crisis latente, en especial teniendo en cuenta la personalidad de Trump, tan propensa a las crisis. Pero también es posible imaginar un futuro en el que este orden se estabilice y normalice un poco y la gente deje de hablar de un terremoto cada vez que un populista asciende al poder o de que la democracia se salva cada vez que un partido del establishment gana unas elecciones.La situación es muy distinta en América Latina. Allí el consenso neoliberal siempre fue más endeble, el centro más frágil, y por ende la era de la rebelión populista ha creado una polarización más clara entre quien esté más a la izquierda y más a la derecha (con la izquierda culturalmente progresista, pero por lo general más expresamente socialista que Biden, Starmer o Macron y la derecha culturalmente tradicional, pero por lo general más libertaria que Trump, Orbán o Le Pen).La nueva alineación en Argentina, con su libertario revolucionario que supera a una izquierda populista-nacionalista, es un ejemplo de este patrón; la contienda entre Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva y Jair Bolsonaro en Brasil el año pasado fue otro. Pero los recientes vaivenes de la política chilena son de especial interés. A principios de la década de 2010, Chile parecía tener un entorno político más o menos estable, con un partido de centroizquierda que gobernaba a través de una Constitución favorable al mercado y una oposición de centroderecha que luchaba por distanciarse de la dictadura de Pinochet. Entonces, las protestas populares echaron por tierra este orden y crearon un giro abrupto hacia la izquierda, además de un intento de imponer una nueva Constitución de izquierda que, a su vez, provocó una reacción adversa, que dejó al país dividido entre un impopular gobierno de izquierda encabezado por un antiguo activista estudiantil y una oposición de derecha en ascenso temporal liderada por un apologista de Pinochet.En cada caso, en relación con las divisiones de Francia y Estados Unidos, se observa un centro más débil y una polarización más profunda entre extremos populistas rivales. Y ahora, si la cuestión para América Latina es qué tan estable será la propia democracia en condiciones tan polarizadas, la cuestión para Europa y Estados Unidos es si la situación argentina o chilena es un presagio de su propio futuro. Tal vez no de inmediato, pero sí después de una nueva ronda de rebeliones populistas, que podría aguardar más allá de alguna crisis o catástrofe o simplemente al otro lado del cambio demográfico.En tal futuro, figuras como Biden, Starmer y Macron ya no podrían gestionar coaliciones de gobierno y la iniciativa en la izquierda pasaría a partidos más radicales como Podemos en España o los Verdes en Alemania, a los progresistas al estilo de Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez en el Congreso de Estados Unidos, a cualquier tipo de política que surja del encuentro entre la izquierda europea y las crecientes poblaciones árabes y musulmanas del continente. Esto daría a la derecha populista la oportunidad de prometer estabilidad y reclamar el centro, pero también crearía incentivos para que la derecha se radicalice aún más, lo que produciría mayores oscilaciones ideológicas cada vez que perdiera una coalición en el poder.Esta es, en cierto modo, la lección más clara de la victoria aplastante de Milei: si no se puede alcanzar la estabilidad tras una ronda de convulsiones populistas, no hay límites inherentes a lo desenfrenado que puede llegar a ser el siguiente ciclo de rebelión.Ross Douthat es columnista de opinión del Times desde 2009. Es autor, más recientemente, de The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery. @DouthatNYT • Facebook More

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      Has Latin America Found Its Trump in Javier Milei?

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      The election of Javier Milei, a wild-haired showboating weirdo with five cloned mastiffs and a habit of psychic communion with their departed pet of origin, as president of Argentina has inspired a lot of discussion about the true nature of right-wing populism in our age of general discontent.Milei has many of the signifiers of a Trumpian politics: the gonzo energy, the criticism of corrupt elites and the rants against the left, the support from social and religious conservatives. At the same time, on economic policy he is much more of a doctrinaire libertarian than a Trump-style mercantilist or populist, a more extreme version of Barry Goldwater and Paul Ryan rather than a defender of entitlement spending and tariffs. Whereas the party that he defeated, the Peronist formation that has governed Argentina for most of the 21st century, is actually more economically nationalist and populist, having ascended in the aftermath of the 2001 financial crisis that ended Argentina’s most notable experiment with neoliberal economics.You can interpret the Trump-Milei divergence in several ways. One reading is that the style of right-wing populism is the essence of the thing, that its policy substance is negotiable so long as it puts forward figures who promise national rebirth and embody some kind of clownish, usually masculine rebellion against the norms of cultural progressivism.Another reading is that, yes, the policy is somewhat negotiable but there are actually deep ideological affinities between right-wing economic nationalism and what might be called paleolibertarianism, despite their disagreement on specific issues. In American terms, this means that Trumpism was anticipated in different ways by Ross Perot and Ron Paul; in global terms, it means that we should expect the parties of the populist right to move back and forth between dirigiste and libertarian tendencies, depending on the economic context and political winds.Here is a third interpretation: While popular discontents have undermined the neoliberal consensus of the 1990s and 2000s all across the developed world, the age of populism is creating very different alignments in the Latin American periphery than in the Euro-American core.In Western Europe and the United States, you now consistently see a center-left party of the professional classes facing off against a populist and working-class coalition on the right. The center-left parties have become more progressive on economic policy relative to the era of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, but they have moved much more sharply left on cultural issues while retaining their mandarin and meritocratic leadership, their neoliberal flavor. And they have mostly been able to contain, defeat or co-opt more radical left-wing challengers — Joe Biden by overcoming Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic primaries, Keir Starmer by marginalizing Corbynism in Britain’s Labour Party, Emmanuel Macron by forcing French leftists to cast a lesser-of-two-evils ballot in his favor in his runoffs against Marine Le Pen.The populist right, meanwhile, has often found success by moderating its libertarian impulses in order to woo downscale voters away from the progressive coalition, yielding a right-of-center politics that usually favors certain kinds of protectionism and redistribution. That could mean a Trumpian defense of entitlement programs, the halfhearted attempts by Boris Johnson’s Tories to invest in the neglected north of England or the spending on family benefits that you see from Viktor Orban in Hungary and the recently unseated populist coalition in Poland.You can imagine the gulf between these two coalitions keeping the West in a state of simmering near crisis — especially with Trump’s crisis-courting personality in the mix. But you can also imagine a future in which this order stabilizes and normalizes somewhat and people stop talking about an earthquake every time a populist wins power or democracy being saved every time an establishment party wins an election.The situation is quite different in Latin America. There the neoliberal consensus was always weaker, the center more fragile, and so the age of populist rebellion has created a clearer polarization between further left and further right — with the left culturally progressive but usually more avowedly socialist than Biden, Starmer or Macron and the right culturally traditional but usually more libertarian than Trump, Orban or Le Pen.The new alignment in Argentina, with its libertarian revolutionary overcoming a populist-nationalist left, is one example of this pattern; the contest between Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil last year was another. But the recent swings in Chilean politics are especially instructive. In the early 2010s Chile seemed to have a relatively stable political environment, with a center-left party governing through a market-friendly Constitution and a center-right opposition at pains to distance itself from the Pinochet dictatorship. Then popular rebellions cast this order down, creating a wild yaw leftward and an attempt to impose a new left-wing Constitution that yielded backlash in its turn — leaving the country divided between an unpopular left-wing government headed by a former student activist and a temporarily ascendant right-wing opposition led by a Pinochet apologist.In each case, relative to the divides of France and the United States, you see a weaker center and a deeper polarization between competing populist extremes. And if the question for Latin America now is how stable democracy itself will be under such polarized conditions, the question for Europe and America is whether the Argentine or Chilean situation is a harbinger of their own futures. Perhaps not immediately but after a further round of populist rebellions, which could await beyond some crisis or disaster or simply on the far side of demographic change.In such a future, figures like Biden and Starmer and Macron would no longer be able to manage governing coalitions, and the initiative on the left would pass to more radical parties like Podemos in Spain or the Greens in Germany, to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezan progressives in the U.S. Congress, to whatever kind of politics emerges from the encounter between the European left and the continent’s growing Arab and Muslim populations. This would give the populist right an opportunity to promise stability and claim the center — but it would also create incentives for the right to radicalize further, yielding bigger ideological swings every time an incumbent coalition lost.Which is, in a way, the clearest lesson of Milei’s thumping victory: If you can’t reach stability after one round of populist convulsion, there’s no inherent limit on how wild the next cycle of rebellion might get.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram. More

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      Tony Blair, Former U.K. Leader, Is Suddenly Back in Favor

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      The former British prime minister, who left Downing Street widely unpopular, is back in favor with his party, Labour, which hopes his political skills can be an advantage as an election nears.A decade and a half after Tony Blair left Downing Street, one issue still defines the former British prime minister in the eyes of many Britons: his disastrous decision to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.When Mr. Blair was given a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II last year, more than a million people signed a petition demanding the honor be rescinded. And within his own Labour Party, he remained a complex figure, detested by those on the far left while grudgingly admired by some who noted that he was the party’s only leader to have won three consecutive British elections.Today, with the Labour opposition sensing rising power under the stewardship of its leader, Keir Starmer, Mr. Blair is suddenly, and rather remarkably, back in favor. For Mr. Starmer, embracing Mr. Blair sends a political message, underscoring Labour’s shift to the center. But the former prime minister also has charisma and communication skills that Mr. Starmer lacks, assets that could be useful as a general election approaches.Last month, the two men appeared onstage together, exchanging compliments at a glitzy conference organized by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change — an organization that works for governments around the world, including autocratic ones, and churns out policies that could help Labour if it wins the next election.Mr. Blair, now 70, is graying, thinner and his face a little more gaunt than when he left Downing Street in 2007. But he still effortlessly held the stage as he told the audience that Britain would be in safe hands if Mr. Starmer won the next election.“It was like the apostolic succession was being declared,” said John McTernan, a political strategist and onetime aide to Mr. Blair, who added that “the chemistry between the two guys made you think they talk a lot and they understand each other.”Mr. Blair and Labour’s current leader, Keir Starmer, exchanged compliments onstage at a Tony Blair Institute conference.Stefan Rousseau/Press Association, via Getty ImagesJill Rutter, a former civil servant and a senior fellow at the Institute for Government, a London-based research institute, said Mr. Blair “has clearly been keen to reinsert himself as a big player in British politics,” but Mr. Starmer “is the first leader who seems prepared to let him do so.”The right-leaning Daily Telegraph newspaper was more blunt. “Tony Blair is preparing to rule Britain again — and Starmer might just let him,” read the headline of an opinion article.Mr. Blair led Labour into power in 1997 in a landslide victory and was prime minister for a decade, shifting the party to the center, helping to negotiate a peace deal in Northern Ireland and presiding over an economy strong enough to invest in health and education.But by the end of his tenure, and as Iraq descended into chaos, the public had soured on Mr. Blair, who, along with George W. Bush, the United States president, had justified the invasion with never-substantiated claims that the country had weapons of mass destruction. The invasion led to years of sectarian violence in Iraq and the rise of Islamist militant groups that became precursors to the Islamic State.Mr. Blair’s reputation post-Downing Street was further damaged by lucrative consultancy work for governments with dubious human rights records, seeming to confirm his affinity for wealth. Such questions have also been raised about his institute. London’s Sunday Times recently reported that the institute continued to advise the government of Saudi Arabia after the slaughter of the writer Jamal Khashoggi and still received money from the kingdom.The awarding of a knighthood to Mr. Blair last year prompted a street protest.Antony Jones/Getty ImagesIn a statement, the institute said, “Mr. Blair took the view then and is strongly of the view now — as he has said publicly — that whilst the murder of Mr. Khashoggi was a terrible crime that should never have happened, the program of social and economic change underway in Saudi Arabia is of immense and positive importance to the region and the world.”“The relationship with Saudi Arabia is of critical strategic importance to the West,” it added, and “therefore staying engaged there is justified.”None of these criticisms have stopped a rehabilitation that would have been inconceivable while Labour was led by Mr. Starmer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, a left-winger and a fierce political adversary of Mr. Blair’s. At the time, Mr. Starmer worked alongside Mr. Corbyn, and when Mr. Starmer became party leader in 2020, he initially kept Mr. Blair at arm’s length.Now, their ties are so warm that when the former prime minister recently celebrated his birthday at a London restaurant, Mr. Starmer dropped by to wish him well.“Tony has just kept going after a period in which it was almost like the Labour Party didn’t want him to be around,” said Alastair Campbell, Mr. Blair’s former spokesman. “I think people eventually think, ‘Say what you like about the guy, but he’s good at what he does; he’s still the most credible explainer of difficult situations.’”Some see a modern-day political parable in Mr. Blair’s return.“A lot of politics has now taken on the narrative of celebrity,” said Mr. McTernan, the political strategist, adding, “Tony, as a political celebrity, fell in the eyes of the public but he has earned his way back.”“It’s not about forgiveness about Iraq, but there is an arc of a narrative around Tony,” Mr. McTernan said, with Britons starting to “be ready to listen again.”Mr. Blair addressing British troops as prime minister in Basra, Iraq, in 2003.Pool photo by Stefan RousseauMr. Blair’s political rehabilitation has been helped by comparisons with a governing Conservative Party that has presided over political turmoil. Years of deadlock over Brexit were broken when Boris Johnson won a landslide election in 2019 — only to be driven out of Downing Street last year under a cloud of scandal. He was replaced by Liz Truss, the British prime minister with the shortest stint in history, before Rishi Sunak restored some stability.“We have had such a succession of failed prime ministers that, to look at someone who did command the stage, you do look back and say, ‘He was quite a big dominating prime minister,’” said Ms. Rutter.The institute’s output has also helped change Mr. Blair’s image, Mr. Campbell, his former spokesman, said. The former prime minister saw a gap for relatively nonideological research focusing on technocratic policymaking and tackling challenges such as artificial intelligence, digital policy and relations with the European Union.With about 800 staff members scattered around the world in Abu Dhabi, Accra, San Francisco, Singapore and New York, and a sleek, modern office in the West End of London, the institute has even had influence over the Conservative government, Ms. Rutter said, pointing to Mr. Blair’s proposal during the coronavirus pandemic to structure its vaccine program around giving as many people as possible a first shot.Mr. Campbell, his former spokesman, added that the work of the institute showed Mr. Blair in a new light, making money not just for himself but also “to build an organization, the fruits of which people are now seeing.”Perhaps the biggest question is: Now what?Mr. Blair, on the left of the second row, sat with other former prime ministers at the coronation of King Charles III this year.Pool photo by Richard Pohle“In the campaign, does an intervention from Tony help?” Mr. Campbell said of the coming election. “In my mind, it would; it would be big news. But that’s a tactical question.”If Labour wins power, more possibilities for influence would open up for Mr. Blair.Ms. Rutter suggests he has built up his institute in part because, when he was in Downing Street — which has relatively few staff members compared with government departments — he believed he had too few experts at his disposal.“The question is whether Blair is content to have an institute churning out reports that a Labour government may or may not want to look at, or will he be looking to be more of a power behind the throne,” she said.Mr. Blair, she added, “has tried to amass a huge piece of policy capability — the only problem for him now is that he’s not prime minister.” More