John Gruber has an apt quote from Hanna Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism in a March 25 Daring Fireball post:
“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”
and then there’s this one from Arendt, same source:
“Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.”
it seems pretty clear that she was right.