In Argentine politics, many politicians are aligned with the same ideals and national projects. We can also find leaders who share similar challenges in leadership when it comes to generating succession or transferring power, as seen in Peronism, PRO, and Radicalism alike. Among the figures who share similar challenges, there are two who represent the present and one the past: Juan Grabois and Franco Macri. 

There is a dangerous idea that has been repeated for decades in politics: “If I do things right, people will notice on their own.” But this idea is false and also suicidal. The reality is much harsher: if you don’t communicate, someone communicates for you. If you don’t occupy public space, someone else does. If you don’t contest the meaning of your message, voters buy into the meaning of your opponent.

And this dilemma has trapped two figures from the political and business world in Argentina without their awareness of it: Franco Macri and Juan Grabois. Both characters, unintentionally, are describing exactly the same thing: the renunciation of the communicational battle as a source of political and cultural defeat. They both reflect the void left by those who do not contest public space and how that void transforms into symbolic defeat.

Politics that does not communicate is doomed to irrelevance.

Throughout this week, we heard two voices as disparate as Juan Grabois and Mauricio Macri put this idea on the table: the communicational void is a cultural defeat, and cultural defeat always ends up becoming political defeat.

Former President Mauricio Macri spoke in an interview about his father Franco, revealing an old wound that never fully healed. He commented that his dad “left the whole field to Kirchnerism” when the conflict over the Post Office erupted. He then said: “They managed to demonize him. They made people believe that he benefited when he lost a large part of his wealth.”

And he finished with a phrase that defines an era: “It was the story upside down.” I wonder if any political marketing consultancy has this type of phrase framed on their walls. The “story upside down” emerges when one leaves public space empty. When one chooses not to explain, not to discuss, not to defend. When one expects “the truth” to prevail on its own. Macri describes with clear resignation what happens when one renounces communication: someone else writes your story, installs it, repeats it, and ultimately converts it into truth for millions.

Returning to the present and the political world, Juan Grabois has his own frustration. One that, unintentionally, directly dialogues with what Macri expressed. Recently, in an interview for El Destape, he commented: “I go to a program and no one is really eager to stay for an hour discussing proposals, that doesn’t clip well, because that doesn’t give you views… that’s not cool.” In that phrase, two defeats coexist: the defeat of depth against the clip, and the defeat of a political sector that has grown accustomed to letting others define public conversation.

When Grabois laments that there is no space to discuss national projects, he is actually saying something more painful: he lacks the capacity to impose the agenda. If public conversation has expelled depth, it is because someone filled that void with simplicity, spectacle, narrative, and consistency. It is not about algorithms; it is about hegemony.

The former president recounts that his father was demonized for being silent, Grabois speaks of his inability to discuss ideas and not finding a way to be heard and considered. The coincidence is brutal: silence or talking and not being heard, in politics, is the same. 

Both describe a phenomenon theorized by Antonio Gramsci a hundred years ago: whoever controls the narrative controls reality. And whoever renounces communication renounces hegemony. Hegemony is nothing more than the ability for your interpretation of the world to become the dominant interpretation. It is not enough to be right. You have to install it. You have to sustain it. You have to explain it. You have to battle every day.

At this point, it is no longer just about explaining measures or defending management. It is something deeper: politics that does not communicate surrenders its biography, its identity, and its future.
A politician who does not understand the relevance of the cultural battle becomes trapped in another’s interpretation and image creation.

Multichannel politics

A country is no longer discussed from Congress. It is discussed in public conversation that now involves everything from: the street, traditional media, TikTok, television sets, Instagram, political tables, books, radios, podcasts, etc.

Those who do not understand this are doomed to irrelevance, and sooner or later, they will discover —as happened to Franco Macri and as Grabois admits— that politics does not forgive silence or an unplanned action properly. Because in the end, it is always the same: someone occupies the agenda. The question is whether you will occupy it or your adversary will.