Journalistic investigations revealed that important fragments of several of the books published by President Javier Milei were plagiarized. It was also learned that he plagiarized a part of his speech at the UN. It is enough to read “The Engineers of Chaos”, by Giuliano Da Empoli, and investigate a little more about specific cases to verify that Milei’s campaign and government strategy is a plagiarism of those implemented by the 5 Star Movement of Italythat of the Hungarian Viktor Orbán, that of Brexit in England, that of the AfD party in Germany, Vox in Spain and that of Donald Trump, among others.
In 2006 the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk published an essay on the political history of anger. He states that throughout history people have always felt mistreated, trampled, and exploited. That for a long time it was the Church that had channeled the accumulated rage, then it was the left-wing parties and currently right-wing populism with the powerful tool of social networks.
The governments are right-wing, but their voters are not necessarily right-wing. They call it “post-ideological techno-populism” and the important thing is the system that puts together the algorithm and then the system looks for a candidate. It could be Milei or Moreno.
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Digital marketing company Harris Media produces virally performing anti-Muslim videos used by both the AfD in Germany and Vox in Spain. In 2000 Gianroberto Casaleggio started a blog and created a politician of a comedian: Beppe Grillo. He called it an algorithm match, The 5 Star Movement.
Gianroberto Casaleggio, in the campaigns of the 5 Star Movement, Steve Bannon with Trump, Arthur Finkelstein, with Viktor Orbán, among others, used the anger of the people in favor of their cause. Finkelstein said “anger is a great source of energy and whoever knows how to guide it wins.” In Milei’s government, Santiago Caputo follows the tradition of these northern advisors, updated to local idiosyncrasy. It is no coincidence that Milei’s advisor calls himself The Wizard of the Kremlin, the name of another book by Da Empoli, which refers to Vladimir Putin’s advisor, Vadim Baranov.
One of the common strategies of the advisors is to generate a new controversy every day that brings together their own troops and scandalizes journalists and opposition politicians. All of these topics are then viralized on networks using armies of trolls until the entire country enters into controversy over an issue that is not nodal and in many cases crosses ideologies. But this carnivalesque madness is well planned by groups of ideologues and big data experts.
The important thing is to generate chaos, constant fights. Da Empoli calls those advisors behind the networks The Engineers of Chaos.
Thus Milei one day can celebrate “Columbus Day”, another claim the dictatorship, praise Thatcher or insult university professors. The country lives in permanent chaos. The aim is no longer to unite people in a lowest common denominator, but, instead, to inflame the passions of the greatest possible number of small groups and then unite them, even without them knowing it. The majority is not sought in the center but in the union of the extremes. Donald Trump, Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson have made some impact every day with some controversial proposal that promoted them
In 2007, two journalists from Corriere Della Sera published the book “La Casta” in which they talked about all the benefits and privileges of the political class, from the president to the last community member. It sold more than a million copies and became the manifesto of populist governments in their verbal fight against the political elite. It was one of the tools that 5 Estrellas and also Milei used.
The Italian Casaleggio of the 5 Star Movement was original and pioneer in several of these techniques. He had read the history of great leaders in history and had learned that no one should doubt the leader’s words, that no one could be wrong. At the slightest fault they were thrown out. Hundreds of members were expelled from the party.
Milei came to the presidency with very few of those who initially accompanied him: he gradually kicked them out. And since he took office he has already fired more than 50 officials
5 Stars was made up of unusual characters, in some cases lumpenes, without any experience or skills. This allowed them to be easily controlled and easily replaced if necessary. Besides, Their grammatical ignorance and frequent blunders, which were laughed at by journalists and politicians from other parties, humanized them and made them closer to the public and further away from caste.
It is not necessary to remember that Milei surrounded herself with characters such as Lilia Lemoine, Lourdes Arrieta, Ramiro Marra and Manuel Adorni, to name a few, who are well received by the population: Adorni and Lemoine are in the race to be candidates in 2025.
In 2018 Giuseppe Conte, an unknown, became President of the Council of Ministers of Italy representing the 5 Star Movement; His online resume was prepared with false information. Several prestigious universities came out to deny that he had passed through them, including the Sorbonne and Cambridge.
Nobody cared. Conte continued to rise. One of the trusted officials who arrived with him was Luigi Di Maio. He did not lie: he said that he had no education and that his only work experience had been that of being a butler at the San Paolo stadium in Naples and he boasted of having accompanied several celebrities to their seats. His specialty was stating one thing in the morning and another contrary in the afternoon and spreading false news.
All the ministers were unknown: the Family minister said that the gay family does not exist, the Health minister said that one could believe or not believe in vaccines and that that was fine. The Justice Department said that the presumption of guilt had to be legislated.
Da Empoli says that his inexperience was seen by the people as proof that he does not belong to corrupt politics and that it is proof of his authenticity.
In 2012, the leaders of 5 Estrellas began to have streaming channels in which fake news found on networks selected for their popularity were given. This is how a parallel reality was created for those who only received information through networks and streaming.
Since 2013, the 5 Estrellas blog had a section dedicated to defaming, insulting, threatening and persecuting all journalists who made criticisms, even the most moderate ones. Advisor Steve Bannon did the same for Trump
In Italy, as in Trump’s United States or Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, the first and main effect of propaganda campaigns is the relaxation of speech and behavior. Vulgarity and personal insults were no longer taboo. Prejudice, racism, homophobia, lies are an important part of this new reality. All this is presented as a war for the liberation of the people’s word that was oppressed by the politically correct caste. Many Americans fell in love with Trump for his insults and grievances and also for his contradictions.
Hungarian Orbán said that “European liberalism does not revolve around freedom but political correctness. Liberals (progressives) are the enemies of the freedom of the people.”
Arthur Finkelstein was Orbán’s advisor. One of his first moves was to turn the adjective progressive into an insult and promote politically incorrect things, such as insults, attacks, threats and racism.
Networking is done on negative emotions because they become more viral, using fake news and conspiracy theories.
Mockery is used to break hierarchies, so people feel that they can make fun of the greatest intellectual or professional and improve their self-esteem.
By whipping up the anger of each interest group without worrying about the coherence of the whole, the chaos engineers’ algorithm dilutes ideological boundaries and rearticulates political conflict. Here they are caught angry by the right and the left, although later they are governed by the right. Perhaps we can look here for the reason why young people who voted for Kirchnerism switched to La Libertad Avanza.
We are social creatures, we need the acceptance of others to feel satisfied. Networks enhance that. The “Like” is crucial. There is its diabolical power. The “Like” is social validation. The ideal client is the impulsive one who returns to the network dozens of times a day.
According to an MIT study, the truth takes up to six times longer than fake news to reach 1,500 people.
Fake news is strategic. Anyone believes a truth, it takes a lot of loyalty to believe anything and that’s how an army is formed. There is little use in countering with data because it is part of the old narrative.
At the solemnity of traditional politicians, the transgressive jester achieves greater identification and is applauded by crowds. Every insult, joke or vulgarity serves to tear down the elite and empower a man who feels freer. This chaos generates in those who participate a feeling of fulfillment and a sense of belonging to this new group that fights for the freedom to break hierarchies.
From spectator he becomes a protagonist. That’s why Milei, Adorni and others repeat daily that now everyone’s opinion counts and a Twitter opinionator is the same as a journalist.
Dominic Cummings, the Brexit campaign director, said: “If you want to make progress in politics, don’t look for experts, use physicists.” Thus, with a series of well-chosen messages according to the preference of each Englishman, he convinced them to leave the European Union.
Da Empoli says these engineers of chaos are changing the rules of the political game. They are populist because they do not use intermediaries. They are on the networks and they vote for them with a “Like”. That commits them, it is an immediate adhesion. Then they seek to catch him with more and more similar content, keep him on the platform until he becomes a follower of any position, even the most irrational ones, provided that he captures the aspirations and fundamentally the fears of the voters.
These governments do not satisfy the needs, but they do fulfill the promise of humiliating the caste: that is why humiliating politicians and journalists is essential. The president may not be re-elected, but the method can be used again with another candidate. Milei was not original, the method and tools were invented. What yes, was effective and fast in his rise. As you can see, plagiarism is the specialty of the house.
