It was a glorious day in Buenos Aires today. Sunny, with fluffy white clouds crossing the sky, a gentle breeze refreshed the city in this spring that seems to be not ready yet to turn into our hellish humid summer. A great day to take a stroll through the almost deserted streets. Today we had our Presidential inauguration, a first in many ways. It was the first time a Libertarian is elected to be President. I believe it is the first Libertarian in the world to be elected to preside a republic, I may be wrong.

Around the city I saw a few instances of Peronist sympathizers being mildly aggressive near anyone wearing a Milei tee shirt. Their leader flipped the finger ostensibly to the many happy supporters of President Milei. A cheap, petty gesture that most were expecting from her. The country is now going to be administered by a team that includes many young, intelligent, and beautiful women. Those were the center of attention. That must have hurt. But so is life. Fleeting is the shine of youth! Especially for those who cultivate hate and resentment and a vile inner life. Au revoir Jézabel!

For Milei’s soldiers, the previous Peronist administration leaves a scorched Argentina, devastated in many ways. The country has a national debt that will take ages to pay. The very DNA of the population is devastated as many took refuge in alcohol and drugs. An epidemic of sexual immorality has left broken families and sick people; a physician told me a few years ago that they are facing new sexually transmitted diseases that are not even known anywhere. Shantytowns pop up all over the place. Entire cities have fallen to the narcs. Nearly half the population is certifiably poor, many are indigent to the point of missing their daily meals. It broke my heart to see a young couple eating cake from a trash can only a few days ago in my neighborhood. A place that was quite affluent until recently and is now a shadow of what it used to be.

President Milei is proposing to cut vast swaths of the government that began to grow about a century ago when Populists began their wrecking tour of the proud and prosperous Argentina when she was just about a century old. In 1916 the country elected the first Radical administration. About that time Argentina boasted of having the second Communist Party in the world. The founder, Victorio Codovilla, died and was buried in Soviet Russia.

Argentina has enough government employees to fill the administrations of several countries. I was told that over a million of those are the kind that only show up at the end of the month to pick up their checks. No one seems to notice that the number of fraudulently employed state employees seem to grow proportionally to the number of children in dire poverty. It does not take a genius to figure out that practice has to end one day. Well, now the government is broke and President Milei is in charge of fixing the problem: Argentina is a dwarf with an enormous head called “government” that demands more and more everyday. Over 160 taxes an a brutal endemic inflation suck the average Argentine dry.

Why was Milei elected? I like to think that he is a shot in the dark for a country that has lived under the boot of an oppressive political class for too long. The old story of the “saviors of the people” is no longer believable. Old Codovilla could not gather many followers today. The political left is exhausted by a reality that spans the planet: the more Socialism, the more misery.

Personally, I don’t think Mr. Milei will go far. At the same time, I fervently hope he proves me wrong. There are millions of children in this country that will grow underfed and undereducated. Rebuilding must be, has to be a labor of love. Without Christ, nothing can be accomplished and the country has lost its Christian roots long ago. But even as Argentines have lost their faith in Jesus, may be Jesus will remember the small flock that survives the devastation of the last one-hundred years.

In the frontispiece of the Buenos Aires Cathedral one can still read: “Salvum fac populum tuum” that is a prayer: “save Your people”. The phrase taken from the Te Deum is very opportune today.

To free man, you accepted the human condition without disdaining the womb of the Virgin. You, breaking the chains of death, opened the Kingdom of Heaven to believers.

Lord, give President Milei the honest will and the power to liberate your people from the forces of darkness. They have suffered more than enough. Amen.