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August 21, 2023

An Argentine-on-Argentine trans-Atlantic shoutathon?

By Monica Showalter

Argentina's most famous citizen, Pope Francis, has been getting away with promoting socialism for years, with no political figure wanting to get involved in any sort of challenge to his economic nonsense.  Even President Trump pulled away from that porcupine during his first campaign, not wanting to annoy Catholic voters.

But things may be different now.

The man who may just be Argentina's president by October, libertarian frontrunner Javier Milei, gleefully relishes mixing it up on economics with guys like the pope.  He thrives on it.  He's vehement.  And he likes to get loud.

Get a load:

SÃO PAULO — Catholics in Argentina appear both somewhat startled and also divided by the surprising recent success of a firebrand politician who's termed the country's most famous native son, Pope Francis, a "communist," an "imbecile" and even a "leftist son of a b*."

That politician, Javier Milei, was the big winner of the country's August 13 primaries, coming in first place with 30 per cent of the vote, ahead of both the major right and left-wing coalitions, and despite lacking a strong party structure of his own.

Milei ended up ahead of Patricia Bullrich, whose right-wing coalition obtained 28 per cent of the ballots, and of Sergio Massa, the current Economy Minister in Argentina's center-left Peronist coalition, who got 27 perc ent of support.

Milei, a member of Argentina's Chamber of Deputies, has expressed admiration for former U.S. President Donald Trump. His own politics have been described variously as radical libertarian, even, to use his own term, an "anarcho-capitalist", and he has a history of run-ins with the country's Catholic Church.

The Catholic Herald of the U.K. notes this for context:

Most of his attacks over the years have been directed to left-wingers in the government, especially to former President (and current Vice President) Cristina Kirchner and to President Alberto Fernández. He once described Kirchnerism as "the worst thing in Argentina's history".

But Milei also has targeted Pope Francis, whom he considered to be a "communist".  Milei identifies as a Catholic, but he said many times that he has been accompanied by a rabbi, is studying Judaism, and that conversion is not out of the question.

In a tweet a few years ago, Milei called Pope Francis a "leftist son of a b* who is preaching communism throughout the world" and said that he was "the representative of the evil one in the house of God".

In another tweet last year, Milei criticized Francis after the pontiff said citizens should pay taxes to protect the poor's dignity. Milei asserted that the pontiff was "always standing on the evil's side" and told him: "Your model is poverty".

Once during a TV show, Milei was criticising the concept of social justice and attacked Pope Francis for his defense of it, calling him "the imbecile who is in Rome".

Unlike other conservative leaders, the wild-haired fellow Argentine seems to get under Pope Francis's skin, and the pope has bitten back at him, in a disguised sort of way, comparing him to Hitler.

Catholic Herald continued:

The populist's rise to relevance has not gone unnoticed by Pope Francis.

During an interview earlier this year to a progressive Argentinian journalist, Francis appeared indirectly to compare Milei to Adolf Hitler, saying that the Austrian-born dictator was initially presented as "a new politician, who spoke beautifully, who seduced the people".

"Everybody voted for little Adolfo, and that is how we ended, right?" the pope said, adding that he fears "saviors without history." He also declared that he was worried about the progress of the far-right around the world.

That is what the country's leftist press has done, to little effect from the country's angry voters.  Pope Francis has no idea what's fueling Milei from Argentine voters.  They are, after all, enduring 116% inflation, meaning every last drop of savings they have is being eaten away by government overspending by the country's sleazy elites, given that inflation is solely a monetary phenomenon, and Argentines are a hardworking lot.  They are tired of putting up with this, all in the name of "social justice" and other claptrap that doesn't describe in the least what's going on.

Here is a sample of the ferocity of what Milei really thinks:

He goes full Andrew Breitbart here:

And he targets every fixture of the oversized government and its corporate-state (I first learned this phrase in Buenos Aires in 2002) backers here:

If Pope Francis were to try to argue with any of this, he'd run into a intellectual buzzsaw.

He might, and then there'd be a trans-Atlantic Argy-on-Argy shouting match, with capitalism and socialism on the line.

That might just be the "conversation" the world actually needs, given how little of it there is, and given Pope Francis's record of shutting out every libertarian voice that could help enlighten him.

Because the pope, as well intentioned as he is with his concern for the "marginalized," has a fatal flaw in not being able to identify who the marginalized actually are.  He speaks of greenies, the transgender and gay lobbies, the wokesters, the poverty industrial complex, and the illegal immigration lobbies as being "marginalized," but he fails to recognize that these people aren't marginalized at all — they're actually the establishment.  They are powerful, they are unaccountable, they have their billionaires and foundations backing them, and already they have more rights and privileges than ordinary people.

Milei clearly understands who the marginalized are, and not surprisingly, he's got a huge backing among Argentina's poor, and those newly impoverished by socialism and all the inflation it brings.

Maybe this guy could educate Pope Francis, but at this point, I wouldn't hold my breath.  If Milei can just keep him in his lane, that would be a gift to all of us.  Apparently it takes an Argentine to set to rights another Argentine.  No one else has been able to do it.

The spectacle of Pope Francis being followed around and corrected by a nemesis from his own country, cleaning it up and making it prosperous, would stand as an amazing rebuke to him and maybe get him to rethink his support for socialist dictators.  If not that, maybe it will shut him up and get him to focus on spiritual matters, particularly if Milei can get the economy to recover over there.  If Milei wins, this could be the mother of all intellectual battles that will reverberate the world over.

Image: Twitter screen shot.

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