Groupthink

Ortega y Gasset popularized the idea of the Masses, that everyone accepted as self-evident - but never examined very carefully. And no one looked very carefully at his strange definitions, or explanations of what they were.

He wrote his book in the Twenties, when Fascism arose after WWI. And was in the process of making Spain one of the first Fascist countries. A horrible process that England and America ignored. Even during WWII, when Nazi submarines were being repaired in Spanish shipyards - Spain was not considered an enemy. Franco had Spain under his control, and was not interested in anything else.

After WWII, it was common to speak of mass totalitarian dictatorships - without considering how this unusual string of words fit together. And how this was also being applied to America itself.

As an American who grew up during this period, I can see how this applied, and continued to apply later in that Century. When Computer people were subject to groupthink. 

The more thoughtful members of this crowd, realized this was a problem. But most did not, and they plunged ahead into mass insanities - where trillions of dollars were wasted, and thousands of lives also (including mine). This was not considered to be a problem, however!

More importantly, this also applied to America - that was in the process of destroying itself, with the eventual election of Trump!

This was done, because Americans believed they were part of a mass of people called Americans. And anything they did, had to be right - and they had to have a strong leader as part of this package.