The new far-right “anarcho-capitalist” president of Argentina, Javier Milei, won his campaign by being a firebrand outside the Peronist “political caste” which led the country into 143 per cent inflation, with 40 per cent living in poverty.
Just how much of an eccentric outsider Milei is, is revealed by who persuaded him to run for president: his dead dog, Conan the Barbarian.
Conan, who died in 2017, was not only Milei’s “true and greatest love”, he was also his closest confidante.
After Conan’s death, Milei hired a medium to “speak” to Conan from the dead. Conan reportedly came through and relayed God’s mission for him to become president of Argentina.
This may sound unhinged. But Milei isn’t the first president to rely on psychic counsel for political decisions. In my book, The Psychic Tests, I reveal that other world leaders have hired psychic mediums to advise them in office. Psychics had a huge impact on the political decisions made by Ronald Reagan and Adolf Hitler.
Psychic belief doesn’t always equal naivety, but it often offers up red flags around someone who needs validation, reassurance and pseudoscience to guide them. High-achieving believers are often paranoid people who feel they can trust no-one in this human world, and must resort to the other-worldly.
Even some sitting MPs today ask mystics for advice. Psychic Sharina Star revealed to me that one of her clients is far-right Senator Pauline Hanson, leader of Australia’s nationalist One Nation Party. She has asked her to predict whether she’ll get re-elected, and for advice if she does.
This is the same Senator Hanson who told fellow Senator Mehreen Faruqi to “pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan” in response to her tweet about the Queen’s death.
Something strikes me about the politicians who indulge in such quackery: they always have objectionable attitudes towards science and society. And none of them come from the so-called “loony left”. From my research, they’re all right-wing or far right politicians. With Reagan, you see it in his abject failure to address the HIV crisis, his socially conservative administration pretending it wasn’t happening as thousands of gay men died.
Unsurprisingly, yet worryingly, Milei calls climate change a “socialist lie”. He wants a referendum to rescind abortion and will campaign to ban it, presumably because Conan the Barbarian, the dead dog, told him from the afterlife, that he’s pro-life. He’s also promised to permit the sale of human organs.
Argentina’s La Nacion newspaper spoke to “a dozen sources” to reveal that Milei tells his inner circle that he and Conan met 2000 years ago, in the Roman Colosseum. They were gladiator and lion, but they didn’t fight because they’d join forces when the right time arrived.
That time is 2023; Milei had Conan cloned to produce a new Conan and four other clones, who he has named after right wing economists. According to several Argentine news outlets, he has been consulting those dogs for advice on matters of his campaign, policy, and more. He calls this canine cabinet his “strategists”.
Journalist Juan Luis González has written the world’s only (unauthorised) biography about Milei, El Loco (The Madman). Interviewed in August, González said: “This man who would command the fate of the country wakes up each day, does medium sessions with the dogs, and then makes a decree based on that. It’s very shocking.”
It doesn’t end there. La Nacion reports that Milei sometimes resorts to his sister Karina’s tarot reading skills to evaluate who he can trust. Karina was his campaign manager. He calls her “the messiah.”
There are disturbing parallels here with another far-right madman. In my book, I report that Hitler had an astrologer/magician privately advising him: Hermann Steinschneider, who operated under the stage name Erik Jan Hanussen. He had unprecedented influence over Hitler and other big-name Nazis. Erik influenced, guided and ultimately tricked Hitler, and the dupe was sensational: he was Jewish.
Then there’s Reagan. His chief of staff Donald Regan revealed the unprecedented influence psychic Joan Quigley had over the timing of every decision. Air Force One couldn’t take off till psychic Joan had cleared the time. She dictated the timings of his re-election announcement, public addresses to the nation, even military interventions in Libya.
There’s often humanity lurking beneath such woo woo belief that’s easy to mock – especially for unsavoury politicians whose decisions have harmed people.
Joan Quigley was hired by Nancy Reagan after an assassination attempt on her husband’s life. She was terrified it’d happen again. Psychic Joan advised on “safe times” for him to leave the White House – and her influence grew from there.
Milei, meanwhile, sought the company of dogs in later life. His dad savagely beat him as a child, and he was bullied too.
It’s beyond distressing when right-wing politicians with dodgy and downright dangerous plans get their ideas from such highly questionable sources. If it wasn’t so disturbing it’d border on parody.
Yet there’s a double standard at play when we mock these politicians too. Plenty of politicians profess a Christian faith. In fact, it’d be practically impossible to get elected as US president as an atheist.
These are people who believe a slice of bread can turn into the flesh of a man who died 2,000-years ago. That a virgin can give birth. That a sky wizard answers wishes.
They’re also people who consult God before important political decisions.
To a secular person like myself, there’s no difference between the unfeasible supernatural miracles they believe in, and the belief system whereby Milei telepathically consults his dead dog.
We don’t question the credibility or decision-making prowess of people claiming God guides them, and their nation.
If we lampoon one, we surely should the other too.
Gary Nunn is the author of The Psychic Tests
