Eventually it dovetails with the dynamics of: "The way you have to pretend to believe/avoid my obvious lies is a demonstration of my power and an implicit threat to others."

Then: "By forcing you to publicly sacrifice your integrity, I've poisoned any future resistance with mutual doubt."

> He thought: the worst thing about Vorbis isn’t that he’s evil, but that he makes good people do evil. He turns people into things like himself. You can’t help it. You catch it off him.

-- Small Gods by Terry Pratchett