Politics is inherently failure.

Totalitarianism is the strategy of spreading failure everywhere and to everyone, so the failure isn't so noticeable by contrast. 

Socrates didn't corrupt the youth in reality. He interrupted the corrupting of the youth. The corrupt accusing the pure of being corrupt is only to be expected. Socrates lost because corruption and failure are much more popular. The people of Athens were ignorant of virtue precisely because they always hated virtue; it wasn't some oversight or error.