History shows an endless parade of examples where sufficiently charismatic and/or cunning leaders/regimes/movements (e.g. Mao, Reagan, Trump, Salazar, Ghadaffi,

History shows an endless parade of examples where sufficiently charismatic and/or cunning leaders/regimes/movements (e.g. Mao, Reagan, Trump, Salazar, Ghadaffi, Khan, Gandhi, Seko, Savimbi, etc)...kept large populations in cultish thrall through combinations of carrots and sticks, including via control valves on statutes and the media. Take your pick on where any figure fits, but its very possible for it to "make sense"