Four Thousand Weeks – Quote 156

The result is a vacuum of collective action, which gets filled by autocratic leaders, who thrive on the mass support of people who are otherwise disconnected—alienated from one another, stuck at home on the couch, a captive audience for televised propaganda. “Totalitarian movements are mass organizations of atomized, isolated individuals,” wrote Hannah Arendt in *The Origins of Totalitarianism.* It’s in the interests of an autocrat that the only real bond among his supporters should be their support for him.