On October 6, 2025, Argentine President Javier Milei took the stage at a packed Movistar Arena stadium in Buenos Aires, belting out rock anthems in a black leather jacket as circa 10,000 supporters roared. It was billed as the launch of his new book, La Construcción del Milagro (The Construction of the Miracle), and it played as a campaign-style rally, with music, flashing screens, and Milei singing classic rock covers.
The performance unfolded as the economy teetered, his government faced scandal, and midterm elections loomed. To many, the stadium fiesta recalled Emperor Nero fiddling while Rome burned….
The question followed: Is this the beginning of the end for Milei’s ultra-libertarian-extravaganza government?
The Stadium Spectacle
Milei entered shortly after 8:30 p.m., wading through a euphoric crowd to a Rolling Stones riff. Giant screens showed atomic explosions and crumbling buildings. He opened with Charly García’s “Demoliendo Hoteles,” backed by his self-styled banda presidencial, which includes a congressman on drums and a legislator on backing vocals. It was not their first presentation: they’ve already done something similar in Luna Park stadium. But this time it was different. For nearly a complete hour, the president-turned-frontman worked through national rock standards.
The show aimed to recapture the electric energy of his 2023 campaign. It was an attempt to “recover the mystique,” revive the anti-establishment persona, and turn anger into excitement.
But the context made it stark. Days earlier, Milei’s coalition had suffered a defeat in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina’s largest district.
“Listen, Kirchnerists: you won one battle, but you didn’t win the war!” he shouted between songs.
At the exact same moment, his economic team is in Washington, seeking a financial lifeline abroad, and his top congressional candidate stepped down over ties to drug money. Still, Milei pressed on, even improvising attacks while changing the lyrics of another García’s song to: “I’m the most liberal of all! You can’t tread on me… because I’m capitalist, minarquist!,” while calling leftist critics “stone-throwing ‘kukas’”.
There were geopolitical notes. He voiced support for Israel, accused “terrorists and the left” of conspiring against Western civilization, and led a rendition of “Hava Naguila.” He closed with Nino Bravo’s “Libre,” as imagery of the Berlin Wall and barbed wire flashed alongside clips of leaders he admires.
Even the epilogue undercut the premise. After encores, Milei told the crowd he needed to “go shower and dress as President again” before the serious portion. He returned in a suit with an Argentine flag to discuss the book, but by then, much of the audience had left. What was meant as the centerpiece became an afterthought, and the spectacle eclipsed substance.
Argentine critics reached for “cringe” and “esperpento.” How to capture the grotesque, absurd, shameful, and politically degrading. I mean, politics have been weird almost everywhere recently, but this guy is… The President. He’s taking absurdity to a completely different grade.
English? I’d said farce, mockery, debacle, sham. Perhaps “travesty” comes closest to mirroring the concept of esperpento that critics hurled at Milei’s rock-show politics, a perversion of presidential dignity into something at once ridiculous, alarming, and sad.
Narco Ties, Economy, and Public Anger
Former congressman Facundo Manes summed up what happened with one word: “Narnia.” A Fantasy Land.
That’s because the concert, which was planned for several months, landed amid multiple crises. Days before, Milei’s star congressional candidate, José Luis Espert, resigned after confirmation he had received a $200,000 payment from a company linked to Fred Machado, under investigation in the U.S. for drug trafficking and financial crimes.
The documented payment shook Milei’s anti-corruption stance. He initially defended Espert, but after pressure grew, Milei accepted the resignation, decrying a “malicious operation” while insisting on Espert’s honorability. Inside the government, strategists acknowledged the need to put distance between the campaign and the scandal.
Beneath the scandals lies an ideological fault line.
Milei’s libertarian creed exalts deregulation and denounces financial oversight as “socialist interference.” Yet that worldview, critics argue, opens the door to the very networks he vows to fight. His Justice Minister, Mariano Cúneo Libarona, once defended major traffickers; his lawyer, Francisco Oneto also represents Fred Machado and Milei in the famous crypto-scam LIBRA, which The Economist considered “the first serious embarrassment as president”, but has now been surpassed by numerous new scandals. Oneto is a lawyer to Machado, the same financier tied to Espert’s payment, and there’s also a senate ally, Lorena Villaverde, who was detained in 2002 in Florida on drug charges.
None of these facts alone proves criminal complicity, but together they trace the ecosystem of a government where radical market freedom overlaps with the economy of illegality.
Meanwhile, the economy strains under Milei’s shock program. Inflation, near 300% annually when he took office, cooled to much more reasonable 30% this year… but it’s still high and has quickened in recent months. Spending cuts and deregulation won investor praise and pushed a primary surplus trajectory, but social tolerance is decreasing, as doctors at the Garrahan Children’s Hospital warn of shortages and low pay; universities face cuts; pensioners suffer because of extreme adjustments in retirement plans, particularly regarding medical coverage.
Markets wobbled after the provincial defeat, peso stability weakened, and bonds slipped, threatening the fragile calm. Facing a potential break, Milei turned to the foreign institutions he once lambasted. Finance Minister Luis Caputo skipped the concert to make an emergency trip to Washington, seeking a multi-billion-dollar bailout, with high-level political backing, as the Treasury evaluates extraordinary measures and the World Bank accelerated disbursements.
Backlash… Is the Far-Right Libertarian Extravaganza Ending?
Peronist leaders called the show frivolous during a national emergency. Buenos Aires Province Governor and main leader of opposition Axel Kicillof argued the government was “out of touch with reality,” noting that in a labor, production, and social crisis, “you use every resource to solve the problem,” not stage concerts. He added voters had already delivered a verdict in Buenos Aires Province.
More telling was unease in friendly media. Anchors at LN+ looked visibly uncomfortable as Milei screamed into the mic; on social media, clips of usually sympathetic commentators wincing went viral. State TV emphasized the president’s political messages and played down the theatrics, but the images were indelible. Even within Milei’s camp, many recognized the optics were damaging.
The world is watching. Milei became a global far-right figure in 2023, an anarcho-capitalist promising to “chainsaw” the state, embraced by Donald Trump and acknowledged by European far-right parties. Now the experiment faces its most serious test. For outside observers, this looks like a reality check for ultra-liberal governance packaged as a culture war.
Still, it is too early to write an epitaph. Not one chapter of South Park could match his level of absurdity, but Milei retains a fervent base built from young, flag-draped supporters chanting “¡Libertad!” (Freedom) at the arena.
The October 26 legislative elections will be decisive. Paradoxically, because his coalition held so few seats, it could gain even with a modest outcome, potentially strengthening his hand in Congress. External support might stabilize the currency long enough to buy time and claim partial vindication.
Yet disillusionment is spreading.
The Movistar Arena performance, this political travesty-cum-farce, will likely stand as a symbol of hubris, a moment when distance from reality was on full display. The Nero and Titanic analogies persist… fiddling or shredding, or singing “Sandro” songs, while Argentina burns and the world watches.
Editor’s Note: All references to legal cases, payments, or investigations are drawn from publicly available court records and reporting by major media outlets cited in this article.
Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
