I appreciate your summary of events, but take issue with your conclusion. If you deem a population as not worth saving, you're opening the door for something worse down the road. (consider France of the 1790s, Russia of 1917, Cambodia of the Pol Pot regime, etc.) If the buffons of recent history were able to fool and manipulate the poor, what do you think happens when a more effective and ruthless demagogue shows up?