“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” Hannah Arendt.

You are right: They are no longer a part of our reality.

They exist in a twilight zone of their own making; able to be convinced, either by their paternalists or their own community, of any lie.

The rational were pushed out or scapegoated over time until only madness remained—as it does now.

The only good thing about cults of personality is that they tend to collapse when the personality does. One of the bad things is that they tend to take everyone with them on their way to collapse.

I found this video interesting, about Bonhoeffer's theory of stupidity and how it relates to Arendt's investigation into what made Nazis do what they did. In brief, he characterises stupidity as not just ignorance, but ignorance that resists and is opposed to learning, and he said this stupidity could be a more damaging force than evil.

https://youtu.be/53ZaXpIn2fg