As George Washington prepared to leave the presidency, he issued a famous Farewell Address warning Americans about the dangers of partisanship. Washington — who famously refused to join a political party during his two terms — exhorted that if Americans cared more about whether their party "wins" than maintaining democratic structures, "a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community" could manipulate the masses through a demagogic leader "to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."
In cults of personality like Bolsonaro's there are "social-psychological associations that give adherents a sense of vicarious power through a heightened sense of destiny and purpose."
