According to Carl Jung: Our dark side is everything we don’t want to be. The collective shadow is what people don’t want to face. When we reject our shadow, murderers and villains suddenly appear and lead us to a hellish life.
In this logic, they would only be the external projections of our internal repressions. This is the same for certain politicians triggering all kinds of passions both positive and negative. They represent everything we like or hate, depending on our opinions.
In all cases, there is a refusal of interiority, an avoidance of its shadows. So they will continue to harass and attack us from the outside.