Perhaps best recognized by the American Left as the guy who gifted Elon Musk a chainsaw to “cut down government spending,” far-right president of Argentina, Javier Milei, has spent his first 13 months in power implementing major austerity measures. Virtually every part of the public sector has seen the wrath of his sinister chainsaw: universities, hospitals, pensions, national airlines, postal service, and even memorial sites commemorating the victims of the military dictatorship.

In the first 12 months of his presidency, an estimated 185,000 formal jobs were lost while public sector employment shrank by 51,000. The purchasing power of families in the metropolitan area plummeted 18 percent in 2024, and poverty levels have remained high. 

Despite all of this, financial sectors see Milei as “stabilizing” the economy and inflation, which has won him credibility as an “economic expert” among the capitalist class. 

However, the price of this “stability” is high — the working class bears the brunt of these brutal austerity measures, and waves of mass protests show these policies can only go so far before reaching an imminent tipping point. 

In Congress, Milei’s minority political party, La Libertad Avanza (LLA), has managed to pass key legislation thanks only to Bonapartist-type measures (decrees, vetoes, protest repression) and with the collaboration (and in several cases bribery) of the so-called opposition. 

The Peronist opposition, in particular, as the leaders of the most important unions and social organizations, has played a stabilizing role in providing governability, offering little more than rhetorical opposition, and refusing to call a general strike and a plan for struggle that could overthrow Milei and his impoverishing economic plan.

A Major Crisis on Milei’s Hands. 

The image of a tightrope walker comes to mind as an apt metaphor for Milei’s current standing. His balance is precarious yet remains intact. But a swift wind could be all it takes for him to go tumbling. 

And the wind has begun to blow.

January 2025 was a politically calm month in Argentina — until Milei delivered an abhorrent, homophobic speech at Davos, falsely equating homosexuality with pedophilia. His words sparked outrage, reigniting grassroots resistance. In response, the LGBTQ+ community organized a mass assembly, which voted to hold a nationwide protest on February 1st. The call to action was met with overwhelming support, as hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets across the nation to denounce his hate speech.

Then, on the evening of February 14, Milei posted a tweet promoting a newly launched meme coin called LIBRA. Within hours, its market cap skyrocketed past $4 billion — only to plummet just as quickly. Suspected of being a crypto pyramid scheme known as a “rug pull,” the collapse resulted in approximately 40,000 virtual wallets being scammed, with losses exceeding $100 million.

The fallout from Cryptogate has been rapid and far-reaching. Alongside growing calls for impeachment, the self-proclaimed “economic expert” faced immediate accusations of financial fraud both domestically and internationally. Investigations are to be launched by local authorities and the FBI. 

The markets reacted sharply too — Argentina’s main stock index plummeted 5.6 percent, signaling a major loss of confidence during a moment of growing economic and political tensions among the bourgeoisie. 

National deputy for the Party of Socialist Workers (PTS), Left Voice’s sister organization, in the United Left Front (FIT-U), Nicolás del Caño, condemned the scam on Twitter:

This scandal marks a major blow to Milei’s credibility and could further embolden Argentinians to take their resistance to the streets. So far, this has proven to be true. 

Pensioners Lead the Way.

For over three decades, retirees have marched around the National Congress building every Wednesday to protest their meager pensions and demand a livable fixed income. Milei’s economic plan has exacerbated the number of pensioners unable to make ends meet, growing this once rather small weekly action into a symbol of the vanguard.

On March 12, the weekly pensioners’ protests saw a surge in support when some of the nation’s most important soccer clubs called for their fans to join. As retirees, soccer fans, sectors of the working class, and the organized left filled the streets around the Congress with slogans like “we’re all pensioners, it’s just a matter of time,” the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, headed a brutal police repression. 

Videos of an officer knocking over an elderly woman, a photographer losing consciousness after being struck by a tear gas cannister, and an officer purposefully planting a gun in the Congressional plaza went viral on social media. 

Bullrich demonized the protesters, claiming the soccer fans were violent hooligans, in an attempt to justify the excessive repression and over 100 arrests. No one was buying her lies. With each new view, share, and retweet of those videos, it became glaringly clear that the government’s actions were designed to instill fear in those who had not yet dared take to the streets. 

What took root was not fear, however, but anger. Later that night, pots and pans protests erupted all around the city in repudiation of the day’s events. Over 1,000 neighbors spontaneously marched down Corrientes Avenue, one of the city’s main arteries, to the presidential palace, filling the streets with noise in denunciation of the repression late into the night.

In an interview on a popular YouTube channel, “Gelatina,” human rights lawyer, former congresswoman, and member of the PTS, Myriam Bregman,highlighted the deepening economic and political crisis the La Libertad Avanza government is facing while accusing Bullrich’s brutal repression and unlawful arrests of violating the right to protest and freedom of the press. She also called for people to join her in the streets at the following pensioners’ protest to continue supporting the retirees.

Another Loss for Milei.

Bullrich’s police repression had a high political cost, and the government had to recalculate. The following Wednesday morning, the train station’s screens varied from their usual programming to provide an Orwellian message: “The police will repress any attack against the republic.”

The ever-widening call to join the pensioners had reached Bullrich’s ears, and she had to take into account that day’s congressional agenda: the new loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Another reason for protesters to take to the streets. She had to resort to the train and social media platforms to threaten those planning to mobilize.   

No authoritarian threat could prevent the mobilization from being much larger than the week before. In the face of the nearly 25,000 people comprising retiree organizations, left-wing parties, and social organizations, it was all bark and no bite. Bullrich and her militarized bulldogs had to back down. The massive police operation ultimately devolved into a glorified roadblock. 

This was a significant victory for the mobilizations. If the government celebrated securing enough votes to sign a new agreement of submission to the IMF, it did so from a position of evident weakness in the streets, all while facing growing criticism, from the crypto scam to the present.

Milei’s Deepening Crisis Is an Opportunity for the Left.

The government revealed its limits. Beyond rhetoric and aesthetics, it changed tactics. It chose not to sic the police on protesters again, deeming it too risky to repeat its previous approach. Inside Congress, they succeeded in approving the new loan with the IMF, but at the high cost of further exposing their erosive weaknesses.

The March 19 mobilization showed a refusal to be intimidated by authorities, a transformation of fear into anger, and anger into mass discontent. What is needed now is a democratic, from-below organization of that outrage in every workplace, school, and neighborhood. 

When, at these protests, members of the PTS start the chant, “PARO PARO PARO, PARO GENERAL” (STRIKE, STRIKE, STRIKE, GENERAL STRIKE), it’s not just for its catchy ring. It’s an actual demand directed at the traitorous union bureaucrats who attempt to hold back and contain the full power of the working class.

The working class has the power to decide what moves and what doesn’t. In a general strike and a coordinated plan for struggle, unions could organize with pickets, roadblocks, and actions led by students and the youth to seriously challenge the government’s austerity plan and the liberal opposition’s co-optative electoralism. 

The U.S. Left has a similar struggle ahead against its own far-right, mop-headed president. In both instances, there must be a socialist and anti-capitalist political force that expresses the people’s needs and challenges capitalist destruction. While the PTS must take on the task of growing in strength and influence in Argentina, the U.S. Left must also start to build such a force.