ARGENTINA – Every Wednesday, thousands of retirees march in Buenos Aires. Often, they are also accompanied by trade unions, students, women and LGBTQI+ activists. Many of these marches have been severely repressed, with police filmed violently beating these elders, causing serious injury and arresting hundreds. And on June 18, up to a million people marched in the capital, with drone footage showing the giant Plaza de Mayo and nearby streets at capacity, brimming with protestors.

The protests target a multitude of issues — from defending former left-leaning president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner against what is seen as political persecution, to demanding dignified retirements and protesting attacks to public services. Millions of Argentinians around the country are rejecting President Javier Milei’s policies — many of which mirror the anti-worker, anti-rights agenda of other far-right leaders like Donald Trump.

The protests are also a response to Milei’s bilious verbal attacks on women, journalists and social movements. A key breaking point that kicked off the current resistance came after Milei’s openly hateful speech in January last year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which sparked outrage across the country. He argued that free enterprise capitalism was the “morally desirable” system to end poverty and said social justice was “unfair,” “violent” and “doesn’t contribute to general well-being.” He claimed that “radical feminism” hinders “economic progress” and described abortion as a “harmful idea.” Abortion was legalized in Argentina for up to 14 weeks of pregnancy in 2020, following years of protests in favor of it.

The response was swift. On Jan. 23, a group of activists gathered in Buenos Aires’ historic Lezama Park, and that night, the Antifascist, Antiracist, LGBTQI+ Assembly was born. The group would become a networking space and organized the mass march a week later on Feb. 1 to reject what it called the politics of “plundering” and, in the process, laying the groundwork for many of the mass mobilizations that would follow.

The government has declared open war on journalists, unions, feminist collectives, cooperatives and opposition parties.

In just a year and half since then, and since Milei took office in December 2023, his administration has implemented brutal budget cuts across key sectors — including education, healthcare, social development, culture and science. He has framed it as a war on the “political caste” and an effort to reduce “public spending,” but these policies have decimated purchasing power, and sharply increased poverty. Further, this economic offensive has gone hand in hand with a political one. The government has declared open war on journalists, unions, feminist collectives, cooperatives and opposition parties, with Milei pushing rhetoric that denies basic rights and normalizes hatred — steeped in misogyny, anti-rights sentiment and authoritarianism. 

That rhetoric has fueled hate crimes. A few months after Milei took office, on May 6, 2024, four lesbian women were set on fire while sleeping in Barracas, and three of them died. The crime shocked the nation and was understood as a chilling manifestation of the government-fostered climate of disinformation and intolerance. Resistance increased even more from that point, particularly led by feminist and LGBTQI+ forces, but open to all.

Then, on Feb. 1 this year, more unprecedented anti-fascist marches were held around the country. They were followed by vast mobilizations on March 8 (International Women’s Day) and June 3 (the 10th anniversary of Ni Una Menos – Not One Less protests against femicide). Then the government of Milei was shaken by multiple protests in June after attempting to bar former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner from running again. 

This organized resistance is far from confined to Buenos Aires. From Catamarca to Córdoba, and from Río Negro to Chaco, unions, Indigenous groups, neighborhood assemblies and grassroots organizations remain on high alert and are organizing regular protests, road blockades, community assemblies and cultural festivals in defense of public services and basic rights.

Women at the forefront

At the forefront of the resistance are the primary targets of Milei’s vitriol and policies: women.

“This government is profoundly anti-feminist,” Victoria Tesoriero, a sociologist and former undersecretary for political affairs in Argentina, told Truthdig. “It dismantled every policy that benefited us and now threatens to roll back the most important laws we’ve won.” 

The government focused on women because “feminism is the only movement that has grown exponentially in recent years, both in numbers and in its ability to mobilize and shape public debate,” says Tesoriero, who is also the founder Proyecto Generar, a pioneering feminist organization that was among the first to track and measure political violence against women and gender-diverse activists.

Economist Candelaria Botto agreed, telling Truthdig, “Milei rose in response to the surge of feminist movements and a government that — at least in discourse — embraced inclusion.” That’s why, she said, his first action was to dismantle public policy frameworks aimed at gender equality, and the institutions that upheld such policies. What the government frames as fiscal retrenchment is, in fact, a political project, she argued.

“This government is profoundly anti-feminist.”

“His economic model is one of reduction in public services, decreasing the quality and quantity of services,” Botto said, adding, “This isn’t a neutral fiscal contraction. It’s a reallocation of funds: slashing essential services while debts and interest payments to financial elites continue to grow. The result? Ordinary people lose health, education and a dignified retirement, while the wealthy gain from tax cuts — like those on property and capital.”

In a 2021 report,Tesoriero’s team talked to female and gender-diverse activists, and found that 70% had experienced political violence. The study, conducted before Milei was president, concluded that, even then, the impact of verbal attacks was to reduce the sector’s political participation and representation.

“Today, hate speech is openly spread by the president himself — in international forums and at home,” Tesoriero said, explaining that it is an intentional strategy aimed at “delegitimizing our feminist movement.”

She called the current resistance a “conservative counteroffensive” and pointed to the political and judicial persecution of former left-leaning president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as a key example, saying, “The increase in violence toward women in politics — particularly against Cristina — is directly tied to the fact that she represents the most powerful opposition to this government. The week she announced her candidacy, she was immediately imprisoned.” Fernández was president of Argentina from 2007 to 2015, and vice president from 2019 to 2023. She was convicted in mid-June in a controversial corruption trial where she was accused of awarding public contracts to a friend, and banned from holding public office — a move widely seen as politically motivated.

Alongside this judicial offensive, Milei has publicly attacked feminist journalists like Julia Mengolini and María O’Donnell, in order to discredit critical media voices. Milei used X to publish at least 65 posts against Mengolini, for example. He did so while an artificial intelligence-generated video was circulating on social media about her, falsely depicting her as carrying out incest.

This confrontational political style that Milei uses against opponents is far from unique. His rhetoric and power strategy strongly echo figures like Donald Trump, with whom he has openly aligned himself. While Milei singles out journalists by name and mocks them publicly, Trump adopted a broader strategy, branding mainstream media outlets as “enemies of the people.” Both leaders feed a political culture that seeks to silence dissent and cultivate hostility toward anyone exercising the right to free expression.

Women and unions unite as public sector unions under siege

Women are also playing a key role in public sector unions, whose workers have been directly attacked by Milei’s government. 

“We’re an explicit target of this administration, which came in calling itself the mole that would destroy the state from within,” Clarisa Gambera, a union leader with ATE (Asociación Trabajadores del Estado – Workers’ State Association) and a prominent feminist organizer, told Truthdig. The government’s attacks have included mass layoffs — many of them affecting workers who were hired through gender and diversity inclusion quotas — as well as arbitrary job evaluations and efforts to delegitimize public employment altogether. 

In response, public sector workers have launched a dual strategy — mobilizing in the streets while building internal structures of care and solidarity to withstand the pressure and fear mongering being weaponized against them.

“This government has declared war on us.”

“We’ve made a point of strengthening feminism within our unionism — not just because we refuse to let it go, but because the way we do politics is rooted in care, and that helps us carry each other through the emotional toll of this moment,” Gambera said.

That emotional toll is not abstract. According to a national survey carried out this year by ATE on violence and state policies during the economic crisis, 43% of respondents reported using medication to cope with anxiety or physical symptoms related to the current labor and economic situation.

Nevertheless, union organizing has adapted and deepened. The feminist inter-union space has played a crucial role in building alliances across sectors. The Feb. 1, 2025 antifascist march — one of the largest in recent memory — was a turning point, bringing together groups with different backgrounds to draw a line against the government’s violence. 

“This government has declared war on us,” says Gambera, “and that has forced us to accelerate processes of defensive unity.” On June 3, 2025, during the annual Ni Una Menos (Not One Less) mobilization, unions also opened up their organizing space to include pensioners — another group systematically targeted by austerity and repression. The slogan that emerged captures the spirit of this moment: “Uniting our struggles is the task at hand.”

Feminist trade unionists are also organizing collective responses to repression. After the arrest of Fernández, they convened a public assembly on June 10 in Buenos Aires with women leaders to denounce what they see as a threat to democracy. Then, an activist was arrested in late June, and four more on July 2. Those four were initially held incommunicado.

“It’s our compañeras who are in jail,” Gambera said, meaning fellow activists and referring to the five female government critics, “And their freedom is bound up with all of ours.”

Attacks on healthcare 

One of the most sustained and powerful expressions of this multisector resistance is taking place at Hospital Garrahan, Argentina’s premier pediatric public hospital. For months, its doctors, nurses and staff have waged a fierce battle to defend public health and their working conditions. With the 2025 budget frozen in nominal terms despite over 118% inflation, the hospital is being systematically starved — its supply chains crippled and wages rendered untenable. Over 220 professionals have already resigned this year.

The stakes are high: Garrahan serves as the only referral hospital for complex pediatric cases from all corners of Argentina. Families travel from remote provinces seeking critical surgeries or treatments they can’t access at home. The hospital’s defunding isn’t just an internal struggle — it threatens the lives of countless children who depend on its high-quality, free care.

In response, the Garrahan workforce has innovated and pushed public solidarity: rolling strikes, bicycle caravans, open festivals and hospital “hugs” and a national march from Congress in mid-July. Cultural figures have joined them in a multisector movement to protect hospitals from austerity. They insist they’re not fighting just for jobs or salaries, but for the right of Argentine society — especially its children — to quality health care. Their message, broadcast in videos convoking the national march, resonates: “When they attacked public universities, hundreds of thousands took to the streets. Now hospitals are under siege. They are attacking all of us.”

The cost of plunder

During his election campaign, Milei vowed to topple the so-called political caste. But those who have truly borne the weight of austerity aren’t corrupt politicians — they’re society’s most vulnerable. The elders of Argentina now shoulder the harshest burden. Between January and July 2024, the government cut the real value of pension funding by around 25.8% — even as inflation soared — leaving retirement incomes increasingly precarious. Pensioners, along with essential medications and senior protections, have been recast as costs to be slashed.

In July this year, Congress passed a modest correction: a 7.2% pension increase (just US$20 per month), and a bump in emergency subsidies from 70,000 to 110,000 pesos (US$54 – US$85). Even combined, most retirees still only receive 379,000 pesos (US$295) per month. Rather than welcome the raise, Milei labeled it a “political act of desperation,” pledged to veto it, and vowed to sue Congress if his veto was overturned — claiming it would “break fiscal equilibrium.” 

That veto pledge sparked spontaneous resistance. In Catamarca, three veteran activists — survivors of the 1970s repression — took to the plaza with signs condemning the veto on what amounted to a “candy-a-day” pay increase. 

“This government doesn’t just ignore our rights — it erases them.”

Among them was Emperatriz “Monena” Márquez, an ex-political prisoner and human rights veteran. She told Truthdig that the struggle is intergeneration and she underscored the plight of those who’ve worked under precarious conditions: domestic workers, seasonal laborers and undocumented workers. Without reinstatement of pension moratoriums for noncontributors, many will be left out entirely.

“This government doesn’t just ignore our rights — it erases them. We’re considered a burden, discarded,” Márquez said. Yet her generation remains defiant — organizing and demanding their right to a dignified life and even dignified death. Their demands include access to medicines, a strengthened public pension system, restoration of the state’s sustainability fund and co-housing policies for elders in precarious living situations.

Though Trump and Milei differ in their foreign policies —Trump’s trade protectionism vs. Milei’s Washington Consensus-style liberalization — their shared commitment to blunting the state’s role is telling. Both champion huge tax breaks for the rich while withdrawing support for services. It’s a playbook of global far-right governance: market-first, people-last. Under this logic, women, migrants, the elderly and low-income families are seen as disposable.

Faced with a government that weaponizes austerity, Argentina’s streets have become not just fierce battlegrounds, but also spaces for creation. In organizing, mobilizing and caring for one another, Argentinians are both challenging any erasure of what happened in the past, and defending their future. For Gambera, the task going forward is to build on the existing unity between different generations, regions and causes, and to continue uniting the struggles and movements. For Márquez, “Our fight is also for all those who will one day retire. People have already paid with their lives to win the rights we are fighting for, and we know that we won’t continue to win without a fight.” The promise of a more just future rests in the resilience of those who refuse to surrender.

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