In Italy, the referendum is almost never a vote on a norm. It is a vote on the political order as a whole. The subject changes – Cnel, Csm, public water, regional autonomy, union retention, career separation – but the narrative remains the same. Democracy, the Constitution, the survival of the liberal state (even) is always at stake.

This gap between technical object and symbolic representation constitutes the heart of the problem. The referendum has lost its nature as a normative instrument and has turned into a totalising symbolic device. It is no longer a mechanism for deciding on a functional arrangement. It is a rite of legitimisation or delegitimisation of the entire political system.

From a poly-linguistic point of view, we are not in front of an excess of civil passion. We are in front of a systematic use of discursive strategies of dramatisation, which alter the semantic scale of the conflict and produce a permanent cognitive distortion.

Systemic translation and intensification: from detail to destiny

The first rhetorical operation one observes is the shift in level. A punctual change in the institutional architecture is incorporated into a higher, dramatic category. A reform is no longer discussed. One discusses the nature of the regime.

When it is stated on a talk show that ‘the survival of the liberal state is at stake’, a semantic escalation takes place. The object is not analysed in its comparative functionality. It is absorbed into the lexical field of existence. It is a typical strategy of categorical intensification.

This is accompanied by the topos of the point of no return. Reform is not reversible. It is not improvable. It is a threshold. Either you cross it or you plummet. This eliminates gradualness. It prevents incremental evaluation. It turns the referendum into a final judgement.

We are inside an eschatological frame. It is no longer about career organisation. It is about salvation or dismantling. Politics becomes the theatre of catastrophe.

Apocalyptic frame and moral polarisation

The vocabulary used is consistent. “Defend”, “save”, “prevent drift”, “prevent dismantling”. These are terms belonging to the semantic field of the terminal crisis. This activates an apocalyptic frame that admits of no ambiguity.

From the perspective of discourse analysis, we are faced with a combination of hyperbolisation of risk, construction of urgency and binary reduction of alternatives. Either you vote for the defence of democracy, or you contribute to its erosion.

Here a second strategy intervenes: preventive moral polarisation. If the survival of the liberal state is at stake, then those who advocate change do not simply disagree. They become co-responsible for systemic damage.

The conflict shifts from the political to the ethical-existential dimension. One does not evaluate the effectiveness of a model. One evaluates the democratic purity of the intention. It is a form of delegitimisation that avoids comparative confrontation.

Naturalisation of the existing and genealogical mystification

Another rhetorical device central to the No campaign is the naturalisation of the current set-up. The current organisation of the judiciary is presented as if it were the only possible configuration of constitutional freedom. The existing becomes synonymous with the guarantee. History is removed, or rather, selected. A precise strategy operates here: genealogical mystification.

The unification of careers was not born as a neutral safeguard of independence. It was secured in 1941 by Dino Grandi within a logic consistent with an authoritarian and hierarchical state. The function was not to protect the judiciary from political power, but to incorporate it into a compact vertical structure. Unity served to guarantee cohesion and systemic control.

The Republican Constitution broke the link with the Government. It has taken the judiciary away from the Executive. But it has maintained the unity of careers. This is a legal fact.

The rhetoric of the No vote operates an undue superimposition: it transforms a historically determined organisational choice into an intangible constitutional principle. Unity is elevated to a dogma of identity, as if changing it were tantamount to compromising autonomy.

Here the topos of sacralised continuity is activated: what has survived the republican transition becomes, retroactively, the necessary foundation of freedom. But this operation makes a logical leap.

The independence of the judiciary does not ontologically coincide with career unity. It coincides with removal from the executive and with constitutional guarantees of autonomy. Confusing the two planes means practising a strategic semantic fusion: one incorporates an organisational element within a broader axiological category, making it unavailable for comparison.

The ‘No’ rhetoric also uses the frame of the implicit threat: separating careers would weaken impartiality, open loopholes for political control, introduce a dangerous divide.

It is a classic strategy of catastrophic hypothetical projection. There is no argument about the comparative model, no discussion of compatibility with other advanced democracies, no entry into the technical merits. A scenario of progressive erosion is constructed. But there is a further element that the No discourse tends to remove.

Over time, the unity of careers and the system of currents have produced a highly self-referential structure. This is not an ideological judgement, but a fact of observation in the public debate. The widespread – and linguistically relevant – suspicion is that belonging to the same order, and often to the same associative currents, can attenuate the perception of distance between the function of prosecutor and the function of judge.

The rhetoric of the No vote avoids this knot through a strategy of preventive neutralisation: whoever raises the issue is immediately brought back into the frame of the ‘delegitimisation of the judiciary’. The topos of the besieged fortress is activated: any criticism is a systemic attack.

In this way, the conflict does not remain on the organisational level. It is shifted to the moral plane. One does not discuss a structure. A symbolic garrison is defended. And it is here that the rhetoric stiffens.

We move from the debate on an institutional model to the construction of an ethical antagonism: on the one hand the defence of the rule of law, on the other the risk of its erosion. It is the same discursive structure that transforms a technical referendum into an existential test.

The point is clear: the No party is not just defending an order. It defends a narrative. And to defend it, it uses intensifications, semantic fusions and sacralising topoi that remove the object from comparative discussion.

And it is in this rhetorical prescription that the referendum ceases to be an institutional confrontation and becomes a ritual of identity.

Enemy construction and intentional presupposition

Apocalyptic rhetoric requires an antagonist. The inferential construction of intention is then activated. One does not criticise the proposed structure. A hidden purpose is ascribed.

This is where the strategy of implicit progression comes in. Today you reorganise. Tomorrow one controls. The day after tomorrow it limits. It is a hypothetical sequence transformed into latent causality.

This technique uses discursive presupposition. The authoritative intention is not demonstrated. It is given by implication. The argument becomes moral before it becomes technical.

In this way, the referendum is no longer an evaluation of organisational models. It becomes identity defence against a systemic enemy. Deliberation shrinks. Emotional mobilisation grows.

Plebiscitary personalisation and referendum as a weapon against the government

In Italy, the referendum tends to turn into a vote on a person. But this personalisation is not always identical in its genesis.

There are two distinct modes: strategic self-personalisation and oppositional hetero-personalisation.

In 2016, Matteo Renzi consciously turned the constitutional referendum into a vote on himself. It was a deliberate rhetorical choice. He applied a strategy of charismatic focus: the outcome of the vote became a judgement on his leadership. The reform was subsumed into the frame ‘it was either me or chaos’. The technical object was subordinated to the plebiscitary dimension.

In the present case, the mechanism operates differently. Customisation does not originate with the promoter. It arises from the opposition. It is conflictual hetero-personalisation. The referendum becomes a tool to target the head of government, even when the question is technical and sectoral.

From a political-linguistic point of view, this produces a functional transformation of voting. It is no longer an instrument of normative revision. It is a device of political attrition. The object of the referendum is reduced to a pretext. The target becomes the leadership.

Here a further strategy intervenes: symbolic superimposition. The question is overloaded with meanings that go beyond its subject matter. Voting against the reform means ‘stopping’ the government. Voting for it means ‘strengthening’ it. Deliberation is flattened by the majority-opposition dynamic.

This mechanism alters the constitutional nature of the referendum. It turns it into a motion of indirect no-confidence. In a parliamentary democracy, this produces a plebiscitary twist that distorts the balance between representation and direct democracy.

Media theatrics amplify this effect. The talk shows do not discuss the merits of the reform. They discuss the political impact on the executive. This activates a dynamic of competitive hyper-mediaisation, in which the referendum is narrated as a final battle between opposing camps.

The result is a referendum that stops being technical and becomes symbolic; it stops being corrective and becomes confrontational; it stops being deliberative and becomes plebiscitary.

And when politics firmly takes plebiscitary form, institutional rationality recedes. Identitarian competition remains.

The referendum as an anthropological rite

On an anthropological level, the referendum functions as a rite of verification of the political order. It is one of the few moments in which the citizen perceives direct, unmediated power.

When direct power is rare, it becomes charged with meaning. It becomes a site of identity projection. Anger, belonging, distrust are condensed in the vote.

This explains the recurrence of terminal rhetoric. Every referendum is perceived as a constituent moment. One does not decide on a norm. One decides on a collective identity.

The problem is not democratic passion. It is the permanent rhetorical disproportion. When every vote is last, politics loses its ordinary dimension.

Between reform and permanent theatre

The real risk is not the reform. It is the erosion of public discourse. When an organisational change is described as an existential threat, the debate becomes distorted.

The rhetoric of No uses systemic translations, hyperbole, presuppositions, naturalisations and constructions of the enemy. These tools mobilise. But they impoverish deliberation.

A mature democracy distinguishes between political conflict and symbolic catastrophe. If everything is a ‘defence of democracy’, nothing remains gradable. And without graduation, democratic discussion is reduced to ritual.

The referendum should not be an apocalypse. It should be an instrument. Restoring this nature to it is an act of institutional maturity, not ideological siding.