Javier Milei, the president of Argentina since 2023, has cultivated a complex and controversial public image marked by a blend of right-wing populist, right-wing libertarian, and conservative ideologies. Known for his ultra-liberal economic views and right-wing populist rhetoric, his political stance has been subject to various interpretations by international media and political commentators. Milei's rise to prominence during the 2023 Argentine presidential election, fueled by his primary win, sparked widespread attention. His proposals, including the abolition of the Central Bank of Argentina and the adoption of dollarization, have been both acclaimed and criticized.
Despite criticism and controversies, Milei's advocacy for economic liberalism, fiscal conservatism, and reduced government intervention, alongside his anti-establishment image, has resonated with a segment of the Argentine electorate frustrated with traditional political structures that brought him to the presidency. His public image encapsulates the polarizing nature of his political and economic ideologies within the context of contemporary Argentine politics.
Life
Milei's life attracted significant attention and at times controversy, and has been described as eccentric, and he garnered a significant following for his bombastic style, television appearances, and rock musician history; he appealed to the issues of corruption in Argentina, and railed against what he describes as Argentina's political caste. He was a goalkeeper before studying economics at the University of Belgrano, and also formed a cover band in his youth and has taught economics. Notable moments in Milei's political campaign included a viral video of him tearing cards from a wallboard with the names of ministries that he wants to abolish and tossing them into the air as he said afuera ("out of the way"), wielding a chainsaw on stage, and smashing a piñata on air to symbolize his plans.
Due to his eccentric hairstyle, Milei has been nicknamed ("The Wig"). He has consistently said that he does not comb his hair, leading to significant press attention, as well as comparisons to fellow right-wing populists Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, and Geert Wilders. Only Lilia Lemoine, vice president of his party and a cosplayer, is able to style his hair. Milei is a cosplayer himself, and has a superhero persona called "General AnCap". He also champions free love. In a June 2020 interview, he disclosed his involvement in several threesomes and his role as a neotantra instructor, describing himself as a tantric sex instructor, claiming to be able to withhold ejaculation for three months. In May 2022, Milei said: "I will not be apologizing for having a penis. I don't have to feel ashamed of being a man, white, blond with light blue eyes." In addition to his ("The Crazy One") nickname, news outlets called him a "rock singer and tantric sex instructor", a "former tantric sex coach", a "mixture of a messianic preacher and a rock star", and likened him to Trump. Milei calls himself "The King of the Jungle".
In July 2023, Juan Luis González released , an unauthorized biography of Milei, whom he interviewed several times.<ref name="González 2023"/ The book sought to define the New Right in Argentina, and González said he could not avoid discussing Milei, including his eccentric personal life, ranging from telepathy and esotericism to speaking with his dead dog to his "God-sent mission" to become Argentina's president. In the book's preface, González wrote: "With the passing of the months, the interviews, the off-the-record meetings, following invoices, stamps, and paperwork, the work went from being a field one with almost academic edges to a tragicomic thriller, halfway between Raymond Chandler's black noirs and John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces."
Javier Milei was elected as one of the Time Persons of the Year for 2024.
Economics Milei has authored several books on politics and economics, and hosted the radio programmes a and . He achieved notoriety and public exposure through his debates and statements on the television programmes of various channels in Argentina, which led him to pursue a political career in 2021. Although part of the Austrian School, which is considered part of heterodox economics and generally holds skeptical views of using mathematics in economics, Milei frequently employs mathematical formulas and charts in his writings. This has led to criticisms from both Austrian School and Argentine mainstream economists.
Milei has been described as a controversial and eccentric economist, and ultralibertarian economist. In 2021, he was accused of plagiarism in his and Infobae columns and works from to Pandenomics, in which he was accused of having plagiarized three Mexican scientists. For his columns, he was accused of having plagiarized the main authors of the Austrian School, such as Henry Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, and Walter Block. He dismissed those allegations, saying: "It doesn't make sense." He argued that, as they were disclosure notes, there was no need to name the authors for a practical issue. For Pandenomics, he was accused of having plagiarized the works of other academics, such as a mathematical model to study different epidemic outbreaks throughout history, among others.
Political positions
Political commentators categorize Milei's ideological views as a blend of populist, right-wing libertarian, and conservative strands, along with ultraliberal economics, right-wing populist, ultraconservative, and far-right politics, and representing anti-politics. Milei's proposed abolition of the Central Bank of Argentina and dollarization have met criticism. Milei's foreign policy views have been described as radical as his social and economic views. Argentine mainstream economists also criticized his economic work and his presentation, describing his concepts as confusing and arguing that the formulas he uses are not correct; in particular, they criticized his Central Bank of Argentina abolition and dollarization proposals. Milei dismissed the critics of dollarization, saying that they do not understand "the condition of transversality".
Despite his anti-Peronism and criticism of Peronism, some commentators cited similarities and contradictions between Milei and Peronism, and argued that he remains a representative of Peronism, where Peronism is not only an ideology but is considered a way to govern, citing examples of left-leaning Peronism (Kirchnerism) and right-wing Peronism, such as that of Carlos Menem, who privatized and engaged in neoliberal reforms. Others agreed that Milei is a populist but argued that he is using populism for liberal ends. Milei also criticized individual politicians of the Juntos por el Cambio centre-right coalition, which he was able to push to the right since 2015.
Milei's stances on social issues, such as abortion, are the main reason why political commentators and other libertarians do not consider him truly a libertarian. Among libertarians, some described him as a libertarian for his overall economic libertarian or neoliberal stances, and rejected comparisons to Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, while others cited the issue of abortion as a reason not to call him a libertarian. Milei said: "I am against abortion because I believe in the life project of others. The woman can choose about her body, but what she has inside her womb is not her body, it is another individual." In response, Carmen Beatriz Fernández, an expert in political communication, stated that Milei is not libertarian but a "neopopulist or right-wing authoritarian". Guillermo Tell Aveledo, a political scientist and dean of the Faculty of Legal and Political Studies of the Metropolitan University of Caracas, said: "His criticisms on issues such as budgets and specific policies, both in his time as a commentator on television programmes and now as a congressman, have been directed at the size and action of the state, so he fits the profile of a libertarian." At the same time, he agreed that Milei's conservative positions and other contradictions prevented him from being considered a "genuine libertarian". As a result, he argued that "paleolibertarian (conservative libertarian)" or "anarcho-capitalist", namely someone who believes in a form of stateless free-market capitalism, or that society can be organized and function only with the market without the need for the state, are more appropriate labels to describe Milei's politics.
Academic analysis
Political scientists generally place Milei within the context of the global far-right, along with Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. Milei has been referred to as the "Trump of the Pampas", although there is some disagreement about his comparisons with Trump. Federico Finchelstein, an Argentinian historian who studies the global far-right, said that Milei was even more dangerous than Trump. On the eve of Milei's election, Finchelstein stated: "He is way more excessive and unstable than [Jair] Bolsonaro and Trump. So it's highly unpredictable what this person could do [in power]." Benjamin Gedan, director of the Argentina Project at the Washington-based Wilson Center, said: "Far-right figures are giddy about Milei's victory and will attempt to recruit him to their global movement. He clearly sympathizes with many of these individuals and their political parties. That said, there are signs he will chart a more independent course." Pointing to Milei's clearer outsider persona, his being a more ideologue than Trump, and a right-wing economic libertarian and opponent of protectionism, Gabriel Vommaro, a sociologist and political analyst based in Argentina, stated that it would be a mistake to make the comparison "without taking into account local particularities." Instead, those opposed to Milei–Trump comparisons argued that Pedro Castillo, the former president of Peru, was a more local and apt comparison to make for Milei, both being clearer political outsiders and lacking parliamentary majority. Thus, Gerardo Munck, an Argentine professor of international relations at the University of Southern California, asked: "The problem with Milei is that he is likely to be weak rather than very strong. Is he closer to Trump or to Pedro Castillo?"
While in the words of Cristóbal Rovira, a professor of political science at the Catholic University of Chile, "Milei has a libertarian component that makes him a rare creature compared to the ultra-right of Latin America", he is placed within the context of the global far right. He said: "There is a fairly global wave of the extreme right. They start in Western Europe, where the emblematic case of Jean-Marie Le Pen is in France in the 1980s, they expand to Eastern Europe and today we see that they are beginning to gain territory in other places: Trump, Bolsonaro." According to Rovira, "Milei would fit into the prototype of what these ultra-rights are." He said: "At an academic level we define them by two important criteria. First, they are to the right of the mainstream right and profess much more radical ideas. In the case of Argentina, Milei is positioned to the right of Macrismo. Second, they maintain an ambivalent relationship with the democratic system and sometimes profess authoritarian ideas. That differentiates them from the traditional right, which act within the rules of the democratic game." According to Rovira, "Milei's case fits very well into this double classification."