By tracing the political resonances of the concept of the ‘real’ in its different theorizations -particularly in relation to singularity and border, and its opposite, multiplicity and entanglement- in this paper we highlight the existing relation between epistemological frameworks and political imaginaries or regimes/horizons. In order to do undertake this task, we offer a critical conceptual triangulation between Chantal Mouffe’s account of the current ‘populist moment’, and the theorization of the real in the work of Jacques Lacan and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. By mobilizing a dialogue between psychoanalysis and (post)phenomenological thinking, we suggest that if the real is not conceptualized as an ontological negativity that the empty signifier needs to tame, but as an aesthetic, embedded and embodied experience of multiplicity, we can think beyond the logics of antagonistic antagonism and instead embrace the ethos of fleshy relationality that informs our co-dependence, precariety and vulnerability.