People don't love bad leaders, they love abusive leaders. Like the more pain they suffer for a leader, the more they need to love that leader for their suffering to make sense to themselves. Abusive leaders exploit that loophole of human psychology. It's why cults form all the time and why people in cults are often forced to go door to door just to face the rejection that non-cultists give them. The rejection from outsiders makes them cling to the cult harder.