I never ever expected Massa to do this well. I thought he was done for, he's a "super minister" (He is in charge of the economy, basically) in a terrible government that is the one led by Fernandez, after losing the primaries he devauled the Peso which was seen as the sign of complete political suicide. But no, he rose from the ruins and positioned himself first. And he has done so without the explicit help from Cristina, and this is a HUGE factor. She didn't play a role in this. She did called the people that support her (A good solid base 20/25% of voters maybe?) to vote for Fernandez last election and this guaranteed his victory. But this time around, she didn't say a lot, in fact she even tried to distance herself from this current administration. To get 37% of the votes without Cristina's intervention is massive, props to the guy I guess.

Before election day, Massa surprised us with what I now call a "political masterclass". You see, in Argentina (but not in all parts, mainly Buenos Aires), public transport is subsidized by the State. Subsidies of all kinds came under fire during this election cycle, so a few days ago he announced a special program in which people could "voluntarily" renounce to transport subsidies and they would have to pay the full fee for the train or bus ride, adjusted with inflation. The ticket cost skyrockets, I pay my bus ride around 63$ Pesos, without any subsidies it goes up to 700$ Pesos. But it doesn't stop there, around last monday they made the machines in which you apply your card to pay for the ride show how much credit you have left AND the full value of the ride without any subsidies. On every screen that announces the train arrival times in the stations, they made them show the difference in cost with the "Massa Fee" compared to "Bullrich Fee" and "Milei Fee", both of which wanted to get rid of subsidies to public transportation. This is politics, this is how you play, dirty but direct. Sure it's using government agencies to promote Massa's campaign but it struck fear into the general population, made them realize that perhaps voting for these two ghouls isn't all that good after all. This must have played a role in a somewhat significant number of voters changing their vote in the very last minute in favor of Massa.

Juntos por el Cambio, your standard neoliberals mixed with some fash, were utterly defeated. 20% something of the votes for the female version of Bolsonaro. I thought she was going to do well and actually reach a second round with Milei, but nope. She failed, I think people saw her terrible display during the debates in which she looked completely out of place, she couldn't articulate one entire sentence. She is awful, she's the cop-friendly pro-security "let's crack down the protesters will all the might of the military" president, but she was the security minister during the Macri days and she completely sucked at her job, in fact, narco violence increased so she didn't fix shit. Her other social and economic policies were dogshit as well. She's a terrible candidate overall, they would have done much better with the other candidate, Larreta, who is the former mayor of Buenos Aires City.

Milei is far from being dead. He lost votes compared to his performance in the primaries, but it's far from over. Do I think he has a chance? Yes, he still does, but it depends a lot on the others and their decision to vote. Still, I don't think his message has enough traction to give him the presidency. I dunno, you can't really talk about dollarization, elimination of ministeries, erradication of all subsidies, having an extremely market oriented education all while allying yourself with some of the most repulsive figures in politics like his VP who's a fucking genocide denial piece of shit. We shall see, he will now have to beg the "political caste" he "hates" for votes, that could potentially ruin his persona. But his voters are completely losing it rn so it's all good.

Also the amazing phenomenom that is Peronism. Anti-Peronists are usually middle-high class little bourgeois who think most Peronists are poor uneducated dumb mestizos too stupid to have pity on themselves and thus rely on Peronism to get something. There is this idea of "clientelism" in which Peronism will literally give you money and subsidies and you will give them your vote, that Peronism keeps you in poverty so that you will vote for them all the time. This is extremely reductionist (and classist, let alone racist), the bases of Peronism are with working class people, plain and simple. And most of these proletarians are poor, but they're not stupid. They're all politically charged individuals whose main allegiance is with Peronism but will actually punish Peronism if they don't get what they want. To think of them as mere NPCs that are led against their will by the Peronists is stupid, but the opposition think it is this way, and this is why they continue to lose. Peronists don't get these votes for granted either, they have to work their asses off for them.

And lastly, the Left. Yet another atrocious result for the Trots, they are completely unable to grow and completely unable to craft a message that resonates among the workers. They do some excellent ground organizing, yes, but as a political party they're pretty terrible. They are a decent parliamentary protest party though, but I know Trots too well, I know if we give them political power they will break apart lmfao. Potential left wing voters are sucked towards Peronism, and the Left has this historical problem of never being able to convince Peronist voters to vote for them instead. So I think we need a new Left, fuck it I even accept socdems (third world socdems are much better than the ones in the first world, I can assure you that) or even mild socialists, Trotskyism doesn't work for this I'm sorry. It's like having an Anarchist party, what are they even going to do? Let Trots organize workers at a ground level which is incredibly based and they're good at it, but keep them away from electoral politics because they're not made for this I think.