The Chainsaw

A running chainsaw, held overhead: the most famous political prop of the decade.

The prop

During the 2023 campaign Milei brandished a running chainsaw at rallies — revving it overhead while crowds chanted. The meaning needed no speech: the state would be cut down to size. Vendors sold toy chainsaws; supporters waved them like foam fingers.

The metaphor

“No venimos a poner paños fríos, venimos a poner la motosierra” — we didn’t come with cold compresses, we came with the chainsaw. The metaphor did political work: it promised speed and depth (shock, not gradualism), it framed cuts as physical and irreversible, and it gave supporters a verb — motosierra — for everything from ministry closures to subsidy cuts.

The governing record

In office the chainsaw translated into: the cabinet cut from 18 to 9 ministries, public works frozen, transfers to provinces slashed, and the deregulation drive (see Shock Therapy and Deregulation). Whether the cuts hit “the caste” or ordinary citizens is the central dispute of the presidency — recorded with both sides in Criticism & Support.

The global meme

On 20 February 2025 Milei presented a chainsaw to Elon Musk on stage at CPAC in National Harbor, Maryland — the symbol exported. Politicians and activists abroad have since imitated the gesture; the chainsaw is now international shorthand for Milei-style austerity, used admiringly by supporters and mockingly by critics.

The symbol, neutrally

This site treats the chainsaw as what it is: a communications device of unusual power. It told voters exactly what kind of presidency was coming — and the presidency, by most accounts including his opponents’, delivered the cutting it advertised. Whether the cutting was wise is not a question a symbol can answer.

Source notes

• Rally footage, Argentine broadcast archives, 2023.
• CPAC presentation: AP/Reuters, 20 February 2025; photograph (Argentina.gob, CC BY 4.0) shown above.