"Mass Propaganda Discovered That Its Audience . . . Did Not ParticularlyObject To Being Deceived . . . They Would Take Refuge In Cynicism"

A mixture of gullibility and cynicism had been an outstanding characteristic of mob mentality before it became an everyday phenomenon of masses. In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. The mixture in itself was remarkable enough, because it spelled the end of the illusion that gullibility was a weakness of unsuspecting primitive souls and cynicism the vice of superior and refined minds. 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. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)

Why Arendt Matters: Revisiting "The Origins of Totalitarianism"

Roger Berkowitz, Los Angeles Review of Books, March 18, 2017 (my emphasis)

Simone Weil wrote that "to be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul." The modern condition of rootlessness is a foundational experience of totalitarianism; totalitarian movements succeed when they offer rootless people what they most crave: an ideologically consistent world aiming at grand narratives that give meaning to their lives. By consistently repeating a few key ideas, a manipulative leader provides a sense of rootedness grounded upon a coherent fiction that is "consistent, comprehensible, and predictable."

The reason fact-checking is ineffective today — at least in convincing those who are members of movements — is that the mobilized members of a movement are confounded by a world resistant to their wishes and prefer the promise of a consistent alternate world to reality. When Donald Trump says he's going to build a wall to protect our borders, he is not making a factual statement that an actual wall will actually protect our borders; he is signaling a politically incorrect willingness to put America first. When he says that there was massive voter fraud or boasts about the size of his inauguration crowd, he is not speaking about actual facts, but is insisting that his election was legitimate. "What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part."

Leaders of these mass totalitarian movements do not need to believe in the truth of their lies and ideological clichés. The point of their fabrications is not to establish facts, but to create a coherent fictional reality. What a movement demands of its leaders is the articulation of a consistent narrative combined with the ability to abolish the capacity for distinguishing between truth and falsehood, between reality and fiction.

The skill that President Trump excels at is his "ability to dissolve every statement of fact into a declaration of purpose," the very skill Arendt attributes to the elite within totalitarian movements. Trump possesses an incredible instinct for those words, phrases, and insinuations that give order and sense to the movement. He pokes at racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia, and in doing so allows his supporters to construct coherent narratives about the America Trump will restore to its greatness. He appears as the truth-teller, the one who reveals those hidden truths that polite society and the elites refuse to utter. And because political elites are so careful to not offend anyone and have placed so many topics and truths off the table of common conversation, Trump looks like the only person in the country willing to tell the truth. . . .

What Arendt shows in Origins is that movements are so dangerous and can be central elements of totalitarianism because they provide the psychological conditions for "total loyalty," the kind of unquestioned loyalty Trump rightly understands himself to possess among his most faithful supporters. "Such loyalty," she writes, "can be expected only from the completely isolated human being who, without any other social ties to family, friends, comrades, or even mere acquaintances, derives his sense of having a place in the world only from his belonging to a movement."