Argentine President Javier Milei is relying on a massive police deployment and criminalization of protest to enforce the fascist economic policy he announced on Dec. 20, with his “necessity and urgency” decree (DNU). The population have already indicated through growing protests and street mobilizations that they’re not going to swallow the imposition of free market deregulation laid out in the murderous Hayekian decree.
Milei was reportedly surprised by the scope of the spontaneous protests that broke out in Buenos Aires and other cities right after he announced his draconian decree because they included members of the urban middle class. These are people who voted for Milei but now don’t want to pay double, triple and quadruple the price of rents, utilities, food, and transportation that have already started to occur just on the basis of his announcement.
Milei’s Security Minister, former presidential candidate Patricia Bullrich—think Wagner’s Brunhilde in full combat gear—is using her announced “security protocol,” with police-state and surveillance tactics, deploying four federal police forces in a Unified Urban Command to terrify, arrest and threaten anyone who participates in protests, warning they will lose their social welfare subsidies if caught blocking streets. Police tactics are reminiscent of the Nazis—boarding buses to identify potential protesters and patrolling train stations looking for anyone who “might” be planning to protest. Bullrich warns that parents traveling with children are also suspect, as they might be planning to bring their children to protests.
