They very deliberately don’t set trends but follow them, as this best facilitates their aims.

I have a theory about this.

I think some of it comes from religion, from being conditioned to believe in hierarchy, to believe someone knows better than you and is worth following, even if you don’t understand why. It’s faith. And you have to follow it; if you have proof, it’s no longer faith, it’s fact, and fact is somehow less. All the fascists do is replace religion with a cult of personality, but that desperate need to have someone to follow, someone who knows the answers, is very simian. I don’t know if we’ll ever entirely evolve out of it, even if we avoid extincting ourselves.