Antagonism is ineradicable, Chantal Mouffe asserts, but this does not imply that adversaries become enemies. The antagonistic dimension is inherent in human relations, and it is politics that orders it, as an order that is always contingent and temporary. Nothing indicates that there cannot be a conflictual consensus, that is, recognizing plurality instead of denying it.

According to the author, politics should mitigate antagonisms by allowing each side to defend its ideas; that is, the transition from antagonism to the agonism inherent in politics. Disagreements are not only legitimate but necessary, even in the context of a heated debate about alternatives. Therefore, she envisions regulated, democratic procedures, underpinned by the idea of ​​rational consensus, centered on the arena where the debate will take place.

To highlight Mouffe's thinking is to acknowledge the absence of innocence. However, her realist approach is beginning to fall short in describing political action. Technological and social accelerations are producing a rapid metamorphosis of political communication that urgently needs understanding because, when communication changes, politics itself is transformed. And in this dynamic, positive changes are hard to find. Madame de Staël described the excesses of Bonapartism as "a cold, sharp sword that, wounding, froze." With these words, I intend to unsettle and warn about the sharp excesses that undermine political coexistence.

I will discuss global changes that are also occurring in Argentina. Hyper-personalization is one of the main ones. There are no longer just political parties with personalities, but personalities with or without parties. Many leaders are shaping institutions to their liking. Political action, often, is the purest display of colossal narcissism, where leaders are both a system and an individual.

Eighty percent of campaign messages are designed to bolster the image of these leaders and their personal attributes, as we discovered alongside Natalia Aruguete when we investigated presidential campaigns. Only a fifth are actual proposals. Campaign platforms are like relics of the past. What we truly choose is the aesthetic way in which egos are displayed and fascinate—or disgust—us.

We are witnessing a proliferation of populist, arrogant discourses that make no claim to truth. They appeal to common sense and anti-intellectualism. They mark a return to pre-modernist thought. Their purpose? To expand without limit. Their proponents care little about knowing or not knowing. What matters—and greatly—is dogmatism, labeling as heretics those who challenge them. They exist from polemics, and from polemics they confront, denying otherness. Otherness, an adversary, whoever challenges me, exists only to be humiliated: for them, nothing but denigration. Political life is a stage of exposed fracture.

Election campaigns offer simplistic speeches, violent incidents, and misinformation. Much of this information is misleading and doesn't circulate through formal news sources. According to an international study by the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, 65% of people access news via search engines, social media, email, and WhatsApp. 74% feel at risk of reading fake news. And what's curious, and speaks to the role of emotions, is that if the content is presumably false but aligns with their beliefs, people still share it.

But disinformation isn't just the hidden actions of unscrupulous politicians and corporations on an industrial scale, creating bots, trolls, fake news, and endless apocryphal content (though that is part of it); beware! The leading voices in politics and journalism are also among the biggest disinformation spreaders. Most political speeches are unverifiable and devolve into blatant lies. In Argentina, as we've already demonstrated with the fact-checking organization Chequeado, out of 1119 speeches analyzed over nearly eight years, 49,86% of the data-driven political discourse (the number could be much higher if we included those without data) is false—lacking any basis—and only 25,73% is true.

We are witnessing a radical determinism of words over reality. To designate is to baptize, proclaims Beatriz Gallardo Páuls. Choosing words is, in fact, a greater act than the fact about which the words will be spoken. The foundation of many words makes it difficult to discern what is true and what is not. Truth becomes a private good: what I believe to be true! As Drew Westen's classic book "The Political Brain" states: if there is a collision between reason and emotion, emotion prevails.

The discourses are simpler, based less on ideas and arguments, and much more on people and decontextualized events. Opinions are offered on everything, but quickly. Being quick to launch—in the media—is the prototype of accelerationism. It's about accelerating any positioning with the aim of being first. The entire dynamic involves thinking about public affairs through constant staging, but always focusing on the concrete to encourage dissent. And I repeat: knowledge isn't necessary, because feelings trump statistics; progress is called into question and technocracy is challenged, putting the expert perspective in check, says William Davies, not to mention that progress has accelerated for some and disappeared for others.

To make matters worse, in a series of overlapping crises, a frightening ideological pessimism has emerged. Anne Applebaum titles her book "Fire on the Prairie." The emotional appeal of a conspiracy theory lies in its simplicity. It explains complex phenomena, gives meaning to chance, and offers the believer the satisfying feeling of having special and privileged access to the truth. Counter-identity discourses predominate: "I don't really know what I am, but I do know clearly what I am not." What unites us is what distinguishes us.

Social groups united by common interests define a tribalism, almost always organized according to leadership. With many radicalized factions harassing each other, no one remains silent. Neither the winners nor the losers. Their internal consensus depends on self-congratulation; they don't seek political correctness, but rather cohesion. The extremes are becoming increasingly vocal. Identities are presented as ideological sentiments, where debates become irreconcilable moral battles.

With the decline in the importance of political parties—which haven't disappeared, but no longer represent what they once did—movements have emerged: grassroots movements, large-scale movements like #NiUnaMenos, neighborhood movements, environmental movements, and movements focused on specific causes. These movements are dynamic, fast-paced, and coalesce around concrete demands. From this perspective, they revitalize representation when they become a political platform. But they carry a risk: if these concrete demands aren't met, the movements disintegrate as quickly as they form. Movements are rich in scale and speed, but they are dangerous because of how quickly they tend to disappear, generating social frustrations and fragile consensus.

Constant antagonism, the popularization of discourse, dominant sentimentality, dizzying political activism, large-scale disinformation, radical tribalism—to name just a few components that define a distinct political communication and, consequently, a different kind of politics—are all ways of playing with fire. In that fire, which is sometimes enjoyed, we all get burned a little, and the situation is even worse for democracy, which grows more heated and volatile every day.