I don't even...

[Napoléon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-HgBrVLv5I

[pocaracas]

I was once told something cool about a small political party and it's own internal discussions.
There's a guy that's in charge of the proceedings and stands in some sort of raised position.
Then all the other members crowd the room.
Every so often, anyone in the audience can participate in the discussion, you just raise your hand and, when told to, talk.
Now, here's where the fun begins.
If the person starts saying something that, while completely reasonable, goes against the leader's view, a few other people in the audience start shouting for that guy to shut up, or they'll say that he's not making sense, or something downplaying his statement.
It's made to look like the majority of the people in there are against that comment, but... but it's just a handful of them that do this over and over again, always the same guys...
Can you guess why it's always the same guys?
They're the leader's puppets, friends, whatever and are there on purpose to keep the line of thought going towards what the leader wants.

This way the cattle that's crowding the room gets the impression that everyone is with the leader and... herd mentality, ad populum fallacy, whatever... the leader's right.

Now, what came first? the political parties or the religious organizations? One learned from the other....