Javier Milei’s last concert confirms not only a trend, but a new way of doing politics. Much has already been written about President Rolinga and his disruptive style. Their leather jackets, their rocker hair and their motorcycles and chainsaws. But it is not just a staging: it is a strategy that seeks to relocate the ruling party to the opposition (“I’m going to go bathe and dress like a president,” Milei said after the recital).
It is not a rally in the form of a concert. It is pure concert and anti-establishment rebellion. Unlike an electoral spectacle that seeks the election of a candidate, this is the ruling party that seeks to openly confront the de facto powers (the caste, the unions, Peronism). In “the age of perpetual protest” (political scientist Devashree Gupta says) it is a brilliant move to victimize oneself, galvanize the faithful and maintain the mystique of the eternal crusade. It is an old Leninist lesson: “One step forward, two steps back.” In these latitudes, Vladimir Cerrón explained it best when he said that the business class did not let them make changes because they had the government, but not the power.
In the Peruvian electoral campaign, concerts are still only the candidate’s musical background. Even though the rally is dead—not even APRA has any stadium speakers left—there doesn’t seem to be anything to replace it. The voter is more disinterested than ever, but no one has yet proposed activations or histrionic performances for the depoliticized voter. They have not used the freshness of reggaeton, the rebellious liberal ‘do it yourself’ of rock or the migrant entrepreneurship of cumbia to present a disruptive message. Nor have they joined the recent female fever of musical spite, of karaoke bars with Mexican ballads and vein-cutting songs. Maybe on Valentine’s Day.
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