Milei performs at rock concert in front of 15,000 people to save the election campaign

“Give me fire, give me the fire of your love,” sang Javier Milei with a raspy voice, clad in black leather, before 15,000 people cheering him on at the limits of collective ecstasy in the Movistar Arena stadium in Buenos Aires. That fire, which the Argentine musician Sandro invoked for with pelvic movements 50 years ago, is what the president sought among his people after a month in which he endured an electoral defeat in a key provincial election, requested a financial bailout from Donald Trump, and lost his star candidate for Congress over ties to drug trafficking. How to define what happened Monday night in Buenos Aires? The presentation of a book, fearlessly titled The Construction of the Miracle, was Milei’s excuse for a rock concert that was also a campaign event, a gigantic karaoke featuring songs “that we all know” and an adrenaline rush to overcome the bad moment.

At 8:30 p.m., the lights in the covered arena went out and the sound of a shofar, a horn used for Jewish ritual purposes, was heard. Milei then walked through the audience, like a divine apparition swept away by the tide, to the rhythm of a Rolling Stones song. He arrived on stage after 10 minutes and hugged his sister Karina. On a giant screen, atomic bomb explosions and crumbling buildings foreshadowed the resurrection. Milei took the microphone and sang “Demoliendo hoteles” (Demolishing hotels), a Charly García anthem. The presidential band, as it is called, played frenetically: Representative Bernie Benegas Lynch on drums, his brother on second guitar, the presidential biographer on bass, and Representative Lilia Lemonine on backing vocals. An hour of covers of Argentine rock classics followed. “They listened to the Kirchnerists, they won one round, but they didn’t win the battle,” Milei said between songs, alluding to his recent defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. Meanwhile, an energetic “Milei, Milei” could be heard from the stands.

Toward the end of the concert, Milei fell silent and became serious. “Israel is the bastion of the West, and that’s why terrorists and the left are together, because they know that by destroying Israel they are destroying the world and Judeo-Christian culture,” he said, without clarifying the origin of the sudden change of tone. He closed the moment by singing Hava Naguila with the audience. For the grand finale, Milei prepared a version of Nino Bravo’s Libre, with images of the Berlin Wall, men shot dead between barbed wire, and images of the attacks on Donald Trump, Charlie Kirk, and Jair Bolsonaro.

Milei fronted a short-lived rock band called Everest in his teens, and this Thursday he may have fulfilled a long-lost dream. Everest lasted less than six months and he played live only twice, just for friends. A concert in a packed Movistar Arena wasn’t on his list of life’s possibilities. After the party, Milei asked for a moment to take a shower and dress up as “president again.” Then it was time for the book presentation, which, after all, was what the crowd was presumably there for. Milei returned to the stage in front of an already half-empty stadium, draped in an Argentine flag and singing the national anthem. He was interviewed by his spokesperson, Manuel Adorni.

The idea had been to also bring on stage José Luis Espert, Milei’s candidate to represent the province of Buenos Aires at the October legislative elections. But that wasn’t to be: Espert resigned on Sunday night after admitting that in 2019, when he tried to become president, he received $200,000 from a businessman who is currently behind bars for drug trafficking and wanted by the United States. Also unable to attend the celebration was Economy Minister Luis Caputo, who was on an emergency trip to Washington to expedite the $20 billion aid promised by Trump.

The crisis has accelerated so much since the far-right’s defeat to Peronism in the September 7 legislative elections in Buenos Aires province, where 40% of the national electorate lives, that Milei must have regretted the title of his latest book. No one is talking about a “miracle” in Argentina anymore, but rather about a government looking for ways to get out of the quagmire. The presidential concert was part of that strategy: to recover the mystique of the 2023 campaign and once again position Milei as an outsider of “caste” politics.

Milei’s literary career reflects this need. In May 2024, five months into his presidency and with his popularity skyrocketing, he presented his book Capitalism, Socialism, and the Neoclassical Trap at the Luna Park stadium. It was published by Planeta, with an initial print run of 5,000 copies. Almost a year and a half later, his new work was released by a much smaller publisher, Hojas del Sur, which also publishes other ideologues of Argentina’s far right, such as Nicolás Márquez and Agustín Laje. This is a publishing house unknown to the general public, which maintains that the books in its catalog “are not just reading material, they are weapons” to win the cultural battle against the left.

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