There is a natural connection between Alexis Tsipras’ declaration, “It’s us or nobody,” and Maria Karystianou’s warning that if her party, Hope for Democracy, does not get into Parliament, she will leave Greece. Both are absolute rulers over their political formations and know that they are their parties’ most valuable assets. Both came to prominence because of the anger of a large part of the population, with Tsipras riding a wave of discontent during the Greek crisis, and Karystianou personifying the nation’s sorrow and rage at the Tempe train tragedy, in which she lost her daughter.

Tsipras may conduct himself with the air of a veteran, following his years in power, while Karystianou is taking her first, shaky steps in politics, but common to both is their desire to address voters with false dilemmas. “It’s us or nobody,” Tsipras told Skai television, referring to his ELAS party, presenting center-left PASOK as unable to bring about “political change.” (He added insult to injury by appropriating PASOK’s old slogan of “Change”). A few hours later, Karystianou told Mega channel that, “If we do not manage to get into Parliament … then for me it will all be over.” And she explained, “Will I stay in Greece? The truth is that I will leave.”

Their motives and background may differ, but the positions that the two expressed stem from the same logic, that of conflict, where there are only two options – right or wrong, good or bad, and so on. Tsipras claims that only he can beat Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (who himself is not above proclaiming “Us or chaos”), whereas Karystianou believes that her absence from Parliament would make the country unlivable. In other words, without the one nothing can change, without the other there is no hope.

These claims may be short-sighted and may alienate many with their arrogance and superficiality, but this is the language that we speak in our politics, in the stadiums, on our screens, on our roads. In this way, supporters go into frenzies, rivals are insulted, consensus and cooperation are impossible. On this unstable ground we keep building our society.

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Building on false dilemmas