The most difficult thing that authority figures can do is resist the temptation to be worshipped. When Vespasian became Emperor, he resisted deification. Not many in that position had that much control of their egos.
In our own time, we saw the leaders of Romania, China, and Korea achieve a degree of deification. One of the three appears to still be as worshipped as ever.
Those who do not worship are quickly identified. If they cannot be bribed or threatened to worship the ruling political authority, or its preferred idols, they are impoverished, jailed, or killed. Deifying leaders is a great way to be able to loot those who don’t go along with the deification process, so greedy underlings usually begin the deifying.
In most of the West, global warming has become one idol whose embrace separates the favored from the pagans.
