Establishment parties admitted populists to government only once populists were safely weak

Evidence

Podemos’s weakness was the very reason why it finally got into government: the hegemony of the PSOE over the left was no longer in danger. … There was no international fleet capable of coming to Iglesias’s rescue, either: the left-populist tide was receding on both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 161

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The central political irony — co-optation into office functions as containment of a defeated rival, not reward for success — resists easy summary and rewards extended reflection.
• XREF: connects to: Mass membership served as the party’s only needed proof of legitimacy — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 176; Left populists appeared radical only because centrist politics shifted rightward — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 296; Parties function as institutional guarantors of political pluralism against populism — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 192 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Parties function as institutional guarantors of political pluralism against populism #corroborates (0.78) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 192
• Left populists appeared radical only because centrist politics shifted rightward #corroborates (0.72) — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 296
• Left-populist parties across countries followed an identically scripted rise and fall #complicates (0.72) — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 161