Argentine Presidential Front-Runner Javier Milei: Biden a ‘Threat to Western Values’

Argentina’s presidential front-runner Javier Milei described socialists as “garbage” and “human excrement” during a radio interview, to which Colombia’s far-left President Gustavo Petro, a former member of a Marxist guerrilla group, responded Tuesday by comparing Milei to Adolf Hitler.

Petro, a former member of the Marxist M19 guerrilla and Colombia’s first-ever leftist president, made the outrageous comparison on his Twitter account hours after Colombia’s RCN radio published an exclusive interview with Milei on Tuesday. During the interview, Milei suggested socialism was the greatest threat to his country.

“What is a socialist on the inside? He is garbage, he is human excrement,” Milei railed.

Elsewhere in the interview, Milei listed leftist values as “envy, hatred, resentment, unequal treatment before the law, theft and murder” and branded American President Joe Biden a “threat to Western values.”

“Biden is a left-wing president,” Milei said. “So it is not surprising that he is also putting the world’s leading power in check. Biden himself is a threat to Western values.”

Milei’s remarks garnered condemnation from Petro.

“This is what Hitler said,” Petro wrote. Milei has not publicly responded to Petro’s comparison as of press time.

Esto decía Hitler. https://t.co/AOvXQQvHTr

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) August 29, 2023

Milei, a lawmaker and anti-establishment presidential candidate for the La Libertad Avanza (“Liberty Advances”) coalition, is known for his outspoken and no-holds-barred contempt for communism, denouncing it as a “murderous system” and socialism as a “disease of the soul.” Milei is a far-right candidate who describes himself as libertarian and anarcho-capitalist.

Milei emerged as the most voted candidate in Argentina’s Open Primary election process this month, leading to October’s general election, with roughly 30 percent of the votes. During the open primary, all individuals who wish to be presidential candidates appear on the ballot; those who receive over 1.5 percent of the vote appear formally on the official ballot.

In his interview with RCN Radio, the Argentine presidential front-runner began by explaining that the decadence of his country started with “socialist ideas.”

“Argentina’s decadence begins with the embrace of socialist ideas – that is to say, the real Argentine disease is called socialism,” Milei told RCN Radio. “To the extent that when a country embraces these ideas, the only thing that will happen is that it will become poorer and poorer.”

“This is what is happening in Argentina, where not only the economic aspect is being destroyed, but also the social and cultural aspects, in all aspects of life,” he continued. “In other words, decadence is general in all aspects of life — and that is socialism.”

Milei continued his explanation by giving his hypothesis on the expansion of leftism in Latin America following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the rise of the Sao Paulo Forum.

“After the fall of the Berlin Wall, here in 1989 the Sao Paulo Forum was set up and the intention of the Sao Paulo Forum was to create the Latin American Soviet Union,” Milei said.

“This is a very concrete plan, there are three parts. In the first part, 90 percent of the battle is cultural and 10 percent is how to obtain resources,” Milei continued his explanation. “The second stage is 50 percent cultural and 50 percent advancing in regulation and attacking companies. Perhaps the last part is the expropriation part.”

The Sao Paulo Forum is a coalition of Latin American and Caribbean leftist governments and political parties established in 1990 by the Brazilian Worker’s Party (PT) — a political party founded by Brazil’s radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The Forum was established to help leftists in Latin America coordinate messaging, ideology, and policy execution across the region.

“What is, deep down, a socialist? He is garbage, he is human excrement, [someone] who basically, because he does not want to support the brilliance of another human being, is willing for everyone to be in misery,” Milei asserted. “To be a socialist, deep down, is a sickness of the spirit, a sickness of the soul. They are bad people, that is the reality.”

“The values of socialism are envy, hate, resentment, unequal treatment before the law, theft, and murder,” he asserted.

“Nothing that comes out of those moral values ​​can lead to anything good,” he said. “That’s why it fails all over the world.”

The description of socialism prompted Petro, a prolific Twitter user, to respond. Petro has used his Twitter account to make similar outrageous claims in the past. Last year, Petro claimed that Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet — who died in 2006 — had been “revived” in response to Chileans overwhelmingly voting to reject a proposed new far-left constitution for their country. Petro has not commented on Milei’s electoral performance in August’s primary process.

If elected, Milei has promised to carry out sweeping reforms to Argentina, a country that has been predominantly ruled by leftist governments for decades. Under the current administration of leftist President Alberto Fernández, Argentina has seen a dramatic collapse of its economy and currency, the Argentine peso. The country, under the auspices of Fernández’s pro-China government, has also been subject to increasing pressure and influence from the Chinese Communist Party that, in turn, has allowed China to control some of the nation’s key strategic sectors.

Some of Milei’s proposed reforms include the shutting down of most federal government agencies, discarding the crumbling Argentine peso as the nation’s currency and adopting the U.S. dollar in its stead — a process commonly known as “dollarization” — and cutting Argentina’s ties to China, as he “does not do businesses with communists.”

Milei has also expressed that, if elected, his allies will be “the United States and Israel.”

Milei continued his interview with RCN Radio by making comments regarding the cultural war between the left and the right, assuring that one of the first things he would do as president is eliminate socialist influence in national culture.

“What did socialism do? It got into the culture, into artists, and artists are great disseminators of leftist ideas,” Milei said. “They have gotten into education, then educational programs increasingly teach socialism and persecute liberalism.”

In Latin America, “liberalism” is typically used as a catch-all to refer to both conservative and libertarian right-wing ideas.

“They [the left] have also co-opted the media,” Milei continued. “So, there is a continuous indoctrination of people taking them towards those romantic ideas that only lead to poverty, and a great example of that decadence is the case of Argentina.”

Milei conceded that the left had won “the cultural battle” and that he would use his influence to apply leftist strategies for promoting right-wing ideas.

“It’s doing the same thing they did. Follow the guidelines of [Italian Marxist Antonio] Gramsci, get involved in culture, get involved in education, get involved in communication, which is what they did,” he continued. “Because, despite all the disaster that they did, they managed to win the cultural battle.”

“If, being such a disastrous system, they managed to win the cultural battle, why can’t we liberals [conservatives] win it if we are the prosperity system, the machine to destroy poverty, the machine to generate prosperity, the well-being machine?” Milei asked.

Milei concluded his interview by describing American President Joe Biden as a “threat to Western values.”

“Biden is a left-wing president,” Milei said. “So it is not surprising that he is also putting the world’s leading power in check. Biden himself is a threat to Western values.”

Milei will face off against Patricia Bullrich from the Juntos por el Cambio (“Together for Change”) center-right establishment coalition and current Argentine Economy Minister Sergio Massa of the ruling leftist Frente de Todos (“Front for All”) coalition in the upcoming October 22 election, with a potential presidential runoff election scheduled for November 19.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.