Thursday, December 14, 2023

Milei has to keep control of the narrative

See Argentina’s New President Has to Defuse an Economic Time Bomb by Moises Naim.

Moises Naim, who served as Venezuela’s minister of trade and industry in the early 1990s, is a distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. His latest book is “The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century.”

Excerpt:

"The key is to keep control of the narrative by telling a clear and compelling story about why reforms are needed despite their obvious short-term costs. Here Milei’s obvious gifts as a communicator could be crucial. Too often in the past, reform has been sold in the kind of dry, technical language that may convince economists but leaves voters befuddled. This is not a mistake the new president is likely to make. Telling and retelling the story of reform in language regular people can easily understand is what Milei lives for."