the one thing i think chantal mouffe was very right about is the fact that we have a very consensus-driven perception of liberalism and it makes it hard for liberals to recognize the modern agonism within politics

This, to me, was the challenge posed by the online (and real world) left starting around occupy. The left leaned into agonism because liberalism had given up on it. Not sure how well it worked but necessity at least ought to be driving liberals today into a more agnostic approach.

Jeffrey Isaac has also written about agonist politics. And loathsome as he may be, and as reductionist as his definition of politics is, Schmitt's friends-vs-enemies captures something critical about our present politics.

Mouffe gets her read of agonism through her read of Schmitt!

Yes! I was introduced to Schmitt via Mouffe!

"The right is winning" and "the right is not the one who says you should end a friendship if you disagree on a political issue" which I get where he is coming from but it overlooks the Andrew Lawrence "oh, you know the ones" element of which political opinions cause people to break it off.

Not endorsing this analysis, but there's a reason why the impetus might be asymmetric. THEY want conflict, they like war, they think division and us-vs-them are a desirable paradigm