Their names were written on the signs: Javier Milei and Sergio Massa: two people in their mid-fifties on one stage. The stage was dark, with the dark glow of cheap records, the dark background decorated with scattered, fleeting white streaks, the tantrum of a child not allowed to use other colors. These scratches shouldn’t be a metaphor.
Those in their mid-fifties wore similar dark suits, although the one on the left was a little too big and poorly cut, as if it had been bought for occasional shopping; The other was a small image: someone worried and taking care of themselves. They both wore light blue shirts and dark ties: the sad uniform of a serious person. And they stood there, standing at their lecterns, trying to convince millions of people that I – not him – should govern them. It must be difficult to talk for a few hours and proclaim that I’m the best.
Although the premises have now changed. There were times when election debates consisted of overwhelming the opponent with ideas, words and empathy that showed that whoever put them forward must govern. But in the end, it’s not about showing how good one is, but rather how bad the other is. Almost everyone practices it: few with the enthusiasm and expectations of Messrs. Massa and Milei, the Argentine candidates.
(Each wanted to show viewers that the other was a disaster. Never have two presidential candidates been so right: under these circumstances, perhaps a tie could be declared and both could be sent to administer the Sandwich Islands and seek Argentina, any solution. )
And yet, when it came to showing themselves better than the other, one of them more than fulfilled the task. If both 50-somethings had landed minutes in front of a UFO or two, if their audience of five or six million people had never seen them before, the 50-something on the right – Sergio Massa – would have won by scandal. He spoke well, he cornered the fifty-year-old on the left – Javier Milei – with questions he couldn’t answer, he announced concrete, understandable projects, he completed all his interventions on time, you could tell he had prepared it with effort and care and knew how to implement it.
While the leftist stammered, he repeated two or three repeated accusations about the “loud and lying politicians” and “their porous hands” and “whoever does it pays” and “social justice is a theft from the state”, but: In general he spoke he talked about what the other fifty-year-old wanted and couldn’t get him to talk about what would have been better for him. His words also hurt the ears: “Look, I’m going to tell you something. A competitive economy like the one I propose is able to compete through its fiscal competitiveness and labor competition. What’s happening is this, you know what’s happening? It happens that…” And he, an economist, systematically confused the word trade with the word commercialize. Because he couldn’t, he couldn’t even decide whether to call his opponent by his first name or not. Or even better: he spoke to you with the sentences you had memorized, he called you when you had difficulties improvising. And he tried two or three populist metaphors that didn’t work, like blaming Johan Cruyff for the German team’s goals against Argentina in the 1974 World Cup, that nonsense. Compared to the other fifty-year-old who had learned everything, who said it with calm, who looked at him with contempt and reminded him of his worst proposals, he seemed very clumsy and had nothing to develop: imposing tariffs on education, freeing weapons, demolition relations with Brazil and China – the main trading partners -, sale of human organs, dismantling of the pension system, removal of subsidies for public services. What the cryptomilist media calls “the campaign of fear” and what is in reality the exposure of all those features of Milei that millions of people, full of logical hatred, desperately want to ignore.
But last night the UFOs were out of commission. Javier Milei and Sergio Massa had come to the debate in their hyper-controlled cars, after many months of campaigning and many years of public relations, in a country where everything is going wrong, where Massa is part of the group that sank it and is now leading it economic disasters. , where Milei presents himself as an outsider who has nothing to do with the shipwreck, but rather with the hatred that the shipwreck causes.
Therefore, despite his dialectical victory, it is far from clear whether Massa has succeeded in making people forget that he is one of those responsible Peronists – and thereby gaining more support. And worse, perhaps the same victory will be irritating to many, it will deprive them of their votes: No, this is another one of those verses that can convince you that cold water is hot. Maybe Milei’s extraordinary awkwardness even worked as a selling point: he doesn’t belong, he’s sincere, he’s authentic, you can see he talks like a human being. Maybe then the argument of Milei’s biggest voter will prevail – sorry for not telling you the name, but I can’t; If they think wrong, they will be right – who says the good thing about their candidate is that they have no idea about governing and no power to do anything? How many Argentines are willing to vote for someone whose greatest merit is his lack of preparation and political strength and his inability to lead a state? How many will think that this would be their greatest revenge against this “caste” of politicians that brought us here? And how many, on the other hand, prefer a ready-made, prepared structure capable of running a state with terrible results?
That’s what this Sunday is about. If this debate served any purpose, it was to make it perfectly clear. No one will be able to say that he believed that; Now millions will work with their conscience to find out what they prefer: the ineptitude of a fanatic, the tricks of an opportunist. The choice is not at all easy; The brooches to cover the nose are already missing from specialist stores, but the Argentinians, as always, manage to tie them with wire.
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