Five Steps to Disarm the Opposition: The Political Conspiracy Theory

The five-act plan to neutralize the opposition

The 15-M was hope, Pablo Iglesias the leader, Podemos the instrument, and disillusionment the end. The theory holds that power manufactures and destroys alternatives to perpetuate itself. Eight years later, the scheme repeats.

Step 1: Channel discontent by creating hope

The 2008 crisis provided fertile ground. The 15-M Movement emerged as a spontaneous explosion of indignation. But, according to an analysis current, the system reacted quickly: infiltration, subsidized groups, and diversion of energy toward a manageable political option. The goal: prevent unrest from crystallizing into something uncontrollable.

Step 2: Build a media leader from nothing

A university professor, with a television profile and anti-system discourse, emerges as the face of change. Pablo Iglesias, unknown until 2014, becomes the vessel for millions' hopes. Critics argue his rise was too fast and too favored by the media he claimed to fight.

Step 3: Submit the resistors

Once inside the boardroom, the new party must absorb or neutralize any split. The grassroots, territorial circles, and internal currents that might deviate from the script are disciplined or marginalized. Control is exerted from the top, and internal criticism is labeled treason.

Step 4: Destroy hope through absurd decisions

The leader begins making measures contradictory to his initial discourse: pacts with the adversary, austerity policies, gestures that smell of the old caste. The goal is for voters to see that 'everything is a farce.' When Pablo Iglesias announced his exit from politics, many felt the prophecy was fulfilled.

Step 5: Mission accomplished and the cycle repeats

'Disarmed. Now we can show reality. Move along, move along.' With irony, some celebrated that the real opposition was decapitated. But the theory has been transferred to other actors: Ciudadanos, Vox, even the Sanchismo itself. Each new force promising regeneration ends up swallowed by the system. The question is whether the scheme is a deliberate conspiracy or the inevitable logic of a regime designed to self-perpetuate.

And now what?

Political disaffection reaches historic highs. Participation falls and voting fragments. Those who believed in change face a dilemma: abstain or be fooled again by the next messiah the apparatus allows to emerge. How long will this loop continue?