Alternatively he is just trapping people psychologically: once you have agreed with someone you will later rationalise your agreement to avoid cognitive dissonance, and you keep doubling-down on that agreement . . . since confronting your false beliefs would be so psychologically difficult. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance https://ideas.darden.virginia.edu/talking-ourselves-into-it

Edit: to fight it, perhaps create a psychologically plausible excuse for why everyone fell for his shit? Give people an out.

Pretty much. Putin’s invasion as well. I’m also reminded of Netflix’s murder documentary, Evil Genius. This show covered the pizza bomber and made an effort to suggest the perpetrator’s were very intelligent. But they were clearly mentally I’ll and made many pathetically dumb blunders, including proactively telling the police that they weren’t behind the pizza bomber when they had no reason to be associated with it in the first place.