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Agreed. And it wasn't just blind trust in his promises despite a lack of deeds, unlike Trump's wild promises. Like I said, Long actually managed to achieve many positive things for the working-class Louisianian. I also didn't mention it, but he was remarkably hostile to racism for a 1930s Louisiana politician; one of his issues with the Social Security system implemented by Roosevelt was that individual states might deny its benefits to African Americans.
I do wonder if he would have remained so benevolent indefinitely - there is the aforementioned secret control of an oil company profiting from State-owned lands, whose profits Long used for political purposes - but at the same time I can't deny he did a lot of objectively good things which helped the people who needed it the most, was rightly beloved for it, and didn't seem to be stepping away from it in his future plans.
If nothing else, he's a fascinating study on how the political positions associated with populism have shifted over time in the US.
I think it also shows that some one who is a "good leader" can also do corrupt things for personal gain. We expect our politicians to be better people than a lot of us are (and we should) but are often surprised when they don't live up to what we think they should be.
I would look at some one like Baltimore City mayor Sheila Dixon. She was actually a pretty good mayor especially when comparing her to some that came after her. But she stole gift cards from the city that were ment for low income families.
It's probably a slippery slope. Like why shouldn't I benefit some from all this good I'm doing. In the case of Long it probably had something to do with him needing the money to help get reelected to continue to help people. Again I'm not saying any of this is ok, just that it is pretty complex to figure out why people do stuff and that it's pretty human to do both good things and be greedy and self serving.