The resemblance is reminiscent of televised replays of Diego Maradona’s feats, when viewers tried to make sense of the feat they had just witnessed, now free from the dizziness and excitement that cloud the moment, the fleeting present. A public trial, which began last Tuesday, is attempting to determine whether Maradona, the Argentine football idol, died as a result of the neglect and abandonment he suffered at the hands of the healthcare professionals who were supposed to be caring for him on November 25, 2020. The new trial seems like a carbon copy of the proceedings that began a year earlier, also in the courts of San Isidro, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. The accused and the accusers, the victim and the crime, are the same. But that’s where the similarities end. The narrative of those involved is different.

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In a scenario constructed from the official statistics promoted by the government, Javier Milei’s Argentina is a happy world: poverty is falling to its lowest level in the last seven years, economic activity is reaching record highs, and fiscal balance is being maintained. But, simultaneously, more and more people say that their present situation doesn’t align with the successes touted by the far-right president, a disconnect pointed out not only by his detractors but even by figures of economic orthodoxy aligned with his policies. Are the official figures false? No, but they are averages that fail to capture an unequal and fragmented socioeconomic reality. And they coexist with other, also official, data, such as the rise in unemployment. Or the acceleration of inflation, whose containment had been Milei’s main achievement and which now remains above 3% per month. In this context, social discontent is spreading, fueled by corruption scandals: almost all opinion polls indicate that the president’s approval rating is at its lowest point.

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