This phenomena of following a cult leader is not new.
Thousands of people fled their homes during the Khilafat Movement to save the caliphate in Turkey.
They were denied entry by Afghanistan and lost everything.
Shaukat Ali and Ali were the Imran Khans of their time.
Then you have the likes of Hitler. He won the elections in Germany through popular vote only for him to burn down the Reichstag.
There's a book called Ordinary Men. It is a true story of German police reserve battalion that was responsible for the mass shootings of Jewish families in Poland.
It follows the story of how regular people, ordinary officers, slowly and unwillingly succumbed to cult indoctrination and ended up doing things that they otherwise wouldn't have.
These things happen - it is human nature. We follow things we don't understand more than the things we do understand.
Ignorance creates an illusion of a possible positive outcome, irrespective of how improbable it is.
It has been evident throughout history. The followers of Caesar, Lenin, Stalin, Napoleon, Jinnah, Gen. Zia, Trump, Imran etc.
It is populist nonsense. It is a combination of the Dunning-Kruger, the God Complex and the Messiah Complex.