> A huge proportion of society is easily manipulated by showing them a "manufactured consensus."

And for the rest, you just need to pander to their belief that they're immune to that sort of thing.

I think Twain is indulging himself. He's conflating trivial social conventions about dinner arrangements and clothes, with deeply-felt political positions, with social and financial farming of political influence.

There's evidence that far from being social conventions, political biases are partly neurological. Whether the biases are due to nature or nurture, brain function can't usefully be reduced to superficial observations about creative thinking or self interest.

Twain should at least have noticed that voters reliably support people who take away their bread/corn instead of supplying it.

In fact humans are quite incredibly bad at calculating genuine self interest. We seem to be programmed to equate effective leadership with a certain kind of strutting acquisitive self-indulgence and macho mammal posturing. Being a follower of same can often be a terrible way to meet your bread needs - but a very good way to be treated as a disposable resource.