Javier Milei rode into Argentina's Casa Rosada on a chainsaw-wielding promise to torch the corrupt political establishment. The irony is now structural: his cabinet chief Manuel Adorni has resigned following months of scandals engulfing the president's inner circle, raising the uncomfortable question of whether the political "caste" Milei promised to exterminate had simply changed its wardrobe.

Adorni's departure caps a string of controversies that have dogged an administration whose entire brand proposition was moral superiority over Argentina's famously grubby political class. Voters who handed Milei a mandate specifically because they were sick of watching officials enrich themselves are now watching officials who promised not to enrich themselves navigate ethics investigations.

The timing is particularly brutal for a leader who built his identity around denouncing others' corruption rather than managing his own governance. Argentina has seen enough political reinventions to know that the new broom rarely sweeps as clean as advertised — but rarely does the advertising expire quite this fast.