The thing seems to come like this, round after round. Last week the underlying fight was against the
president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro
. “You can't expect much from someone who was a terrorist murderer. (...) he is a
murderous communist
who is sinking Colombia,” Javier Milei shot in an interview. It was not the first time that the Argentine president spoke in these terms about his Colombian counterpart: he had already described him as
“garbage, human excrement
. ”
Background that the government of that country overflowed in the statement released on Wednesday ordering the expulsion of diplomats from the Argentine Embassy in Bogotá.
When Colombia asked for an apology from Milei, he remembered that the Colombian had once compared him to Adolf Hitler. “The sayings of each president are their own.
“We must not confuse the nation with the president
,” said Foreign Minister
Diana Mondino
, trying to put a cold shoulder to the matter.
In the same report, Milei also attacked his Mexican counterpart,
Andrés Manuel López Obrador
. She called him
“ignorant”
and added that it was “a compliment that an ignorant person like López Obrador speaks badly of me, it exalts me.” In this case the confrontation is not new either.
Regardless of his targets, it is not new that the Argentine president cultivates a
decidedly confrontational style
. From “the caste” up, down and to the sides, little and few have been left out of the reach of his Twitter or verbal anger. There are those who argue that these discursive confrontations, so to speak, are a strategy to distract attention from thornier issues, such as the strong adjustment in the economy.
It would give the impression, however, that they have to do with the personality of the President, and that they are launched without any prior calculation.
They are part of the
brutal honesty
, sometimes bordering on sincericide, Milei's
trademark
and, probably, also part of his success, his popular roots, and the good image that the polls still show. In the face of politicians who promised exactly the opposite of what they ended up doing, or were concerned about maintaining, even hypocritically, forms over substance,
an outsider who speaks clearly, without euphemisms
and does not mince words when it comes to definitions , regardless of what they are, can be seen as a breath of fresh air. Although it sometimes resembles a tornado.
On the other side there is a
society already crossed by dozens of cracks
, which seem to multiply and deepen day by day.
Kirchnerism and its friend-enemy logic
, conveniently
agitated from power
, managed to create the great initial crack. And beyond the promises, from then on, no one with enough responsibility to do so managed to close that gap. Rather, the work seemed to be aimed at enlarging it a little more each time.
“He who sows winds reaps storms
,” says the saying. And violence, of a diverse nature, is present in the daily lives of Argentines. A national survey by the consulting firm Voices! found, last August, that 41% of those surveyed had witnessed
acts of abuse or aggression on public roads
in the last 30 days. In
Capital and GBA the index climbed to 49% and 48%
respectively.
Insecurity and killing for nothing
, exhibiting a brutal disregard for life, are the most extreme manifestation of that violence. Now, in an absolutely condemnable event, death threats and strong messages against President Milei have just become known on social networks.
It will not be hate that saves us. We already had enough of that, with the results known. Wouldn't it be time to try another recipe?