In our imagination, the tyrants of the past—and the tyrants of today in places we've never been—have seduced their gullible citizens with lies that we, the enlightened people from the right time and the right place, would have seen right through. It's not how it works!!!
The most soul-defying, murderous ideas are typically sold to the public as "public good," until too late. There is nothing original about it. There is nothing particularly clever about it. It's been done many times. Physical reality doesn't care about our delusions.