We are in a transitional stage in which much of the popular certainty of the postwar era is slowly fading. In such an era, and when politics is no longer an elitist enterprise but a more populist one, the politician who can rouse the passions of the crowd will gain a larger following than the politician who appeals to reason. Once a person becomes a member of the crowd which is being mesmerized by a populist politician, that person ceases to think completely for himself and absorbs the passion of the mesmerized crowd. Cognitive dissonance easily becomes epidemic.

Mussolini

This was certainly true of Mussolini, the father of fascism. It was an example that every dictator, no matter how immoral and irrational he may be, has followed with some success. In such a transitional era, reason is easily abandoned to the passion of the moment.

In many ways, Mussolini was an idiot, but one who understood crowd mentality and how to manipulate a crowd through its fear and passions and the abandonment of reason and even deeply cherished ideals. This can also happen in the politics of religion, and religion is easily contorted into a fear-based moralistic political ideology. This has happened in our midst in the most recent time.
Once such a populist dictator gains power, it is almost impossible to remove him without assassination. A populist dictator is narcissistic and sociopathic. He can be concerned only with his own power and can thrive on crowd-power as long as he can keep a substantial portion of the populace mesmerized by fear and immune to reason and reality. He will instinctively manipulate the sense of abandonment that traumatises a significant segment of the population in social/cultural transition periods.