There are dates and causes that, in theory, belong to everyone. The 24th of March, the issue of Malvinas, debates on women's rights, historical memory, public education. These are topics that transcend generations, identities, and party affiliations. However, they rarely function as spaces of consensus. They transform into banners, borders, and symbolic trenches.
Why does this happen? Is it inevitable that the common becomes appropriated by the partisan? Or are we facing a deeper phenomenon that speaks to the very nature of politics?
Politics as a struggle for meaning
From political theory, we know that politics is not just management. It is, above all, a struggle for meaning. The competition is not only for positions; it is a competition to define what each symbol, each date, each word means.
The 24th of March, for example, is memory, it is historical interpretation, it is a narrative about the past and, above all, it is a way to project the future. What is remembered? How is it remembered? With what emphasis? That is where the dispute begins.
The same occurs with Malvinas. The cause for sovereignty over the islands, recognized even by resolutions of the United Nations, is a state policy upheld by various governments. However, the way it is linked to the military past, nationalism, or contemporary diplomacy varies according to the ideological orientation of the one who states it.
When do these issues transition from being public policy to being an exclusive party identity?
The logic of polarization
In contexts of high polarization, symbols become emotional shortcuts. Fragmented societies tend to reduce complexity to slogans. And slogans simplify what is, in reality, deep, painful, and multi-causal.
Agendas related to women's rights are a clear example. What began as an expansion of civil and social rights ended, in many discourses, as an ideological marker. For some sectors, it is synonymous with progress; for others, with cultural threat. The debate shifts from concrete public policies on violence, wage gaps, access to justice towards an identity battle.
Is the real problem being discussed or is it a matter of who “takes” the issue?
Sterling capital as a resource of power
In international relations, we speak of soft power: the ability to influence through values, culture, and narrative. Internally, something similar happens with symbolic capital. Appropriating a broad cause grants moral legitimacy. And in politics, legitimacy is power.
If a space manages to establish itself as the true defender of memory, or sovereignty, or social rights: it gains ethical authority. And that is worth gold in electoral competition.
The problem arises when that appropriation involves excluding the rest. When differing views cease to be political adversaries and are presented as moral enemies. The cause stops uniting and begins to divide.
Is it possible to depoliticize what is political?
Perhaps the question is poorly formulated. It is not about depoliticizing. Memory, sovereignty, and rights are inherently political. What could be discussed is whether they should become the exclusive property of a party identity.
Can the 24th of March be a space for transversal reflection and not an electoral thermometer?
Can Malvinas be maintained as state policy without being used as a tool for situational differentiation?
Can the women's agenda be discussed in terms of public policy and not in terms of automatic ideological alignment?
The answer depends on the leaders and also on society, on the media, and on the collective capacity to tolerate complexity.
The responsibility of leadership and the media
Digital media, and here necessary self-criticism, often amplify the most extreme version of each debate. The algorithm rewards confrontation, not nuance. And thus, what could be a democratic debate turns into gossip.
Leadership, for its part, faces a dilemma: appealing to consensus yields less immediate return than mobilizing the convinced. Contemporary politics, marked by social networks and accelerated news cycles, tends to prioritize impact over depth.
But in the long run, a society that turns each shared symbol into a permanent battle erodes its own cohesion.
What is at stake
When everything becomes a party banner, the risk is polarization and the loss of a common space. And without a common space, politics ceases to be negotiation among differences and becomes a permanent cultural war.
Nations need minimal consensuses: historical memory, territorial integrity, expansion of basic rights. For that debate not to destroy the shared framework that makes it possible, and in a healthy manner.
One thing is that a topic is political. Quite another is that it stops being everyone's.
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