Perhaps it’s because of my profession; perhaps it’s because I don’t like speaking — I detest the concept of noise, and this includes the sound of jackhammers, cat fights, and AOC speeches. I feel more and more in tune with Cardinal Robert Sarah, who wrote the most beautiful piece of literature ever dedicated to silence. My aversion to loudness has nothing to do with volume, because I’m capable of blowing out the speakers on my stereo if the Smiths are playing. It’s just contempt for unpleasant sounds in repetition and, most especially, for the chaotic conversations of others held in very loud voices, which are often the ruin of writers who, as is my case, are in the habit of doing so with a notepad and fountain pen on a nearby terrace or café.

We live in times of unbearable noise. The climatic babble in street conversations and social networks is noise. The fussing of woke arsonists is noise. And the media drip-feed of biased information to try to hide the corruption of the Biden family is also noise. The constant anti-Israeli manipulation by Hamas and the global pro-Palestinian Left is noise. Halloween is noise. Joe Biden’s Twitter TL is noise. And reggaeton is noise always and everywhere.

For some unknown reason, perhaps because evil tends to converge at the same place, the Left is adopting noise as one of its favorite strategies. The way in which the evidence against the Biden family was covered up is case in point. But in another latitude this very week, we have experienced another lurid attempt at manipulation that has already gone around the world. I am referring to all those headlines claiming that Javier Milei is crazy and that he suffered a psychotic breakdown this week in an interview and started hearing voices.

Javier Milei’s campaign has collapsed. Last night, Milei – looking really unwell – gave a career-ending interview that mixed megalomania and signs of mental illness. Here, he complains of loud voices distracting him – but the studio is empty. It’s over
pic.twitter.com/9Imb5y5A3U

— David Adler (@davidrkadler) October 27, 2023

Indeed, in the video of the interview, Milei hesitates, gets lost in his speech, and seems to turn suddenly and look at the ceiling of the set and to the sides, only to report that there is a murmur in the background that makes it impossible to concentrate on explaining complicated issues about his plan for government. Video edits in which Milei is seen lost are now flooding the net, and there is a message on Twitter — which is also being copied and pasted by thousands of users as I write — from a supposed young woman who says that she was going to vote for him but that, after seeing the video, she cannot endorse a madman for president. There is even another message, this one more condescending, also repeated by thousands of bots, in which a user says that, as a Milei supporter, he is worried that the pressure he is being submitted to will cause him to suffer a mental breakdown, and that he should withdraw his candidacy in order to take care of himself. 

¿Es necesario decir algo más? pic.twitter.com/cvHhVThuhQ

— Javier Milei (@JMilei) October 27, 2023

Noise on noise. Images that, conveniently cut, everyone has swallowed hook, line, and sinker. And nobody or almost nobody playing the truth: such is the campaign against a supposedly psychotic Milei on prime time that the interviewer was forced to come forward and deny that the libertarian politician had suffered a mental breakdown, and that there was indeed excessive noise on the set during the interview. What is more, he apologized as director of the program and explained what was behind the noise: A trade union strike caused unexpected stoppages at the channel, and, during the interview with Milei, a whole team of technicians — who were on strike — had to be replaced by others who were arriving on the set at that precise moment. In other words, there was a lot of noise and a lot of people talking behind the cameras — perhaps too much to explain the dollarization process he proposes for Argentina and how he plans to reduce the size of the government from day one. 

And yet, the real and the metaphorical noise has been repurposed by the Kirchnerist Left as a desperate weapon to kill Milei. Stay tuned, because the noise will continue to grow, and the Left, especially if the polls go badly, will use it more and more until the next elections in the United States, in Argentina, and in Europe. And the thing is: It works. Perhaps conservative merchandising for the next election campaign should be earplugs.

Translated by Joel Dalmau.