In her book The Origins of Totalitarianism – which, despite 80-year-old backdrop, still reads at times like a lucid commentary on current affairs – Hannah Arendt describes the development of such masses. First comes the mob, dregs of society and its rejects, whose only creed is fanaticism, whose hatred for the other is the air that they breathe and who yearns for a strong leader unafraid to use force. After them, given the right circumstances, come the classless masses, isolated and resentful, who feel that their world is crumbling in front of their eyes, against their will and contrary to their interests.