[Lalwendë]

I know. It's chilling. And I can't think of anyone in the modern or even recent world who inspired such devotion.

But rather than Kim Jong Il, who I think probably inspired much suppressed hatred too in his subjects (and those pictures of dramatic grief were likely carefully released to show the rest of the world just how 'loved' he was - or how they want us to think he was loved), I always take this vision of an all-powerful Galadriel to be something approaching a religious figure.

Galadriel is the Lady of Light, and Light is holy in Tolkien's creation. She also bears Nenya which has a 'white' stone, and White is also presented as a representation of divinity. She is represented by two symbols of divinity in Arda. As an aside, the Mirror of Galadriel appears to have stars suspended in the water - Light held in water, note that Nenya is the Ring of Water.

Sam climbed up on the foot of the pedestal and leaned over the basin. The water looked hard and dark. Stars were reflected in it.
'There's only stars, as I thought,' he said. Then he gave a low gasp, for the stars went out.

And Nenya is powerful. I think it's clear that it somehow possesses some of the Light:

She lifted up her white arms, and spread out her hands towards the East in a gesture of rejection and denial. Earendil, the Evening Star, most beloved of the Elves, shone clear above. So bright was it that the figure of the Elven-lady cast a dim shadow on the ground. Its rays glanced upon a ring about her finger; it glittered like polished gold overlaid with silver light, and a white stone in it twinkled as if the Even-star had come down to rest upon her hand. Frodo gazed at the ring with awe; for suddenly it seemed to him that he understood.

'Yes,' she said, divining his thought, 'it is not permitted to speak of it, and Elrond could not do so. But it cannot be hidden from the Ring-bearer, and one who has seen the Eye. Verily it is in the land of Lorien upon the finger of Galadriel that one of the Three remains. This is Nenya, the Ring of Adamant, and I am its keeper.

Given all this, I can quite easily see how, if she took the One Ring, she would be "beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night" and inspiring the sort of slavish devotion that no mere political leader could hope for and would only ever be given to a religious figurehead. A terrible and ultimately unkindly religious figurehead.

Of course, the question about Galadriel is that a 'cloud' still hangs over her for her part in the Noldorian rebellion, and there's debate over whether she is still one of those under the ban from Valinor because Tolkien was not perfectly clear. I think she is. This seems to be her 'test':

She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illumined her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light Faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.
'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'

That, given that in her youth Galadriel joined the Noldorian flight from Valinor because she sought power that she could not have there, showed how Galadriel was incredibly strong and had grown incredibly wise too. She had enjoyed long years of power in Middle-earth, had been, you could argue, the most powerful female figure in the whole of Arda, and now she had grown mature enough to know to reject further power.

I think that had she taken the One Ring, she could have become even more terrible than we could imagine. I don't doubt for a minute she could have bested Sauron, but at an awful cost. And just to add to all of this, she has placed an incredible faith in Frodo at this point, to know that she has accepted her power will diminish from that point, but not knowing (or does she?) that the One Ring will be destroyed.