The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, leads a coordinated attack on television, radio and the Internet once morest pop diva Mariana Lali Espósito. Like the American Donald Trump with Taylor Swift, Milei has chosen the popular Argentine singer as his bête noire in the artistic field. Lali is not the only star in the country who has taken a stand once morest Milei nor the most critical of him, but she embodies everything that Milei detests: she is progressive, feminist, defender of legal abortion and the rights of sexual minorities. From a television set, the president criticized on Wednesday night that she receives public funds for her shows and renamed her “Lali Depósito”, a viperous nickname quickly replicated by the army of milleista followers on the networks. This Thursday, Milei raised her tone: he called her a “parasite,” accused her of playing back and retweeted (and then deleted) memes made with artificial intelligence in which Lali appears with a bag full of dollars fleeing from starving children.
“Who started this? I? She started. If you like peaches, ignore the fluff,” the president declared to Radio La Red. “If you want to attack you have to be clean, if you are a parasite who lived sucking on the State’s breast, and if your opinions are in line with a political space that paid you for your presentations, you are a propaganda mechanism, you are not an artist,” Milei attacked Lali in the radio interview.
The president refers to the anti-Milei political stance maintained by Lali since the ultraliberal economist was the most voted in the primary elections last August. “How dangerous. “How sad,” the singer wrote when the election results became known. Those four words triggered an earthquake of libertarian anger on her social networks, with responses every time Lali expresses herself politically.
The most recurring dart is to accuse her of collecting state funds for concerts held in cities throughout the country, a common practice not only in Argentina but throughout the world. Local, provincial and national governments usually finance shows that are offered for free in public spaces.
On social media, Lali’s supporters have pointed out that Milei’s girlfriend, the impersonator Fátima Florez, has also received state funds for her performances at public festivals. In a Twitter thread Florez can be seen at the poncho festival in the province of Catamarca and advertisements for presentations in Tucumán, Neuquén and Córdoba, among others.
“What if I say, what if I drink, what if I live off the State”
This weekend, with her five feet tall, Lali came out like a hurricane on the Cosquín Rock stage. It was his first performance at this iconic summer festival in Argentina and when performing the hit Who Are, he made a small change of lyrics to mock the attacks received from the ruling party: “Que si fumo, que si vivo, que si dice / que si drink , that if I live off the State – instead of ‘that if I have kissed so many’ – / Talk talk talk, pure shit, baby. Shortly following, he urged his audience to prevent them from taking away “the union that music, art and culture generates” and dedicated his song KO to “the liars, the idiots, the bad people, those who do not value, those who do not value ”.
At the same festival, another artist, Dillom, angrily intoned “They have to kill Caputo in the plaza,” in reference to the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo. The phrase earned him a judicial complaint for inciting violence and aggravated threat, but not a word from Milei, obfuscated by Lali.
Lali started on television when she was only 10 years old. At 32, she is one of Argentina’s most successful singers, but she grew up in the humble south of Buenos Aires. She went to castings by bus, without an agency or representative, until she succeeded in Cris Morena’s soap operas for teenagers. as Floricienta and Teen Angels and from there he jumped into pop music.
In a long text that she published this Thursday on the “I feel that the asymmetry of power between you and those you attack for thinking differently and false information makes your speech unfair and violent,” she told Milei.
Mr. President @JMilei
My name is Mariana Esposito, I was born in Parque Patricios, in the south of the city of Buenos Aires.
I am 32 years old and have been working for 22 years.
I started working at 10 years old in Television. In those years I had the joy of participating in series and shows with a…— Lali (@lalioficial) February 15, 2024
Smokescreen
Dozens of artists and celebrities came out to defend Lali in public this Thursday. “We support our colleague Lali in the face of harassment by the president. Institutional violence once morest cultural representatives and social leaders seeks to silence the voices that are raised once morest misogyny, hunger and adjustment,” denounced the Argentine Actresses collective in a statement. Her boyfriend, the journalist Pedro Rosemblat, opted for irony: “I understand you brother. I’m also obsessed with Lali and I do the same stupid things as you. I watch everything he does, I pay attention to what he says, they ask me regarding anything and I tell them regarding it.” For Rosemblat, Milei’s constant attacks contradict the liberal mantra that he repeats in every speech — “Liberalism is unrestricted respect for the life project of others, based on the principle of non-aggression” — which is an unequivocal sign that “ “He is not a liberal but just another reactionary.”
The voices once morest it even came from the ruling party, as in the case of deputy Carolina Píparo: “Personalizing and attacking an artist from the power of the State is asymmetrical. “It’s not that way.” The governor of Córdoba, the province where Cosquín Rock is celebrated, assured that Milei “has an obsession with making blacklists with musicians” and maintained that the smear campaign seeks to “distract attention” from Argentina’s real problems. The South American country has the highest inflation in the world – 254.2% year-on-year – despite going through a harsh economic recession. According to the International Monetary Fund, Argentine GDP will decline by 2.8% this year.
Upon assuming the Presidency, two months ago, Milei released prices that Kirchnerism maintained to a certain extent regulated, such as food – which has accumulated an increase of 300% in one year – and withdrew subsidies from public transportation and services such as gas, Light and water. Both measures have put the shrinking Argentine middle class on the ropes, hard hit following successive years of loss of purchasing power. Criticism of Lali distracts more than helping to put out the multiple sources of a country on fire.
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