Argentine President Javier Milei is an unusual politician. The former television personality is perhaps the only world leader in generations who would describe himself as a libertarian. He’s certainly the first ever to identify as an “anarcho-capitalist.” He has a fiery disposition and is known for bluntly insulting his opponents. He frequently engages in stunts such as dressing as the superhero “General AnCap” or revving a chain saw in public to show his commitment to slashing the size of government. His proposed policies and statements as he ran for Argentina’s presidency matched his outlandish behavior. He proposed radical market-oriented reforms, the complete elimination of several huge government agencies, and a total break from politics as usual.

Argentine President Javier Milei is an unusual politician. The former television personality is perhaps the only world leader in generations who would describe himself as a libertarian. He’s certainly the first ever to identify as an “anarcho-capitalist.” He has a fiery disposition and is known for bluntly insulting his opponents. He frequently engages in stunts such as dressing as the superhero “General AnCap” or revving a chain saw in public to show his commitment to slashing the size of government. His proposed policies and statements as he ran for Argentina’s presidency matched his outlandish behavior. He proposed radical market-oriented reforms, the complete elimination of several huge government agencies, and a total break from politics as usual.

Milei is a weird guy, but Argentina is a country with peculiar problems. Since Milei won the election in November, the world has held its collective breath waiting to see what the outlandish, bizarre, extreme candidate would look like as a president. Surprisingly, Milei’s first two months in office have been mostly sensible and promising. But behind the encouraging policy changes, there’s still the potential for a troubling authoritarian turn.

No area sums up the cognitive dissonance that Milei inspires better than climate change. Milei campaigned as a full-blown climate change denier. He said that “politicians who blame the human race for climate change are fake” and called the very idea of climate change a “socialist hoax.” And yet as president, his........

© Foreign Policy