wait... hold on... I'm confused...
what is this tool chest of demagoguery of which you speak?
and who is doing the manipulating?
and are you saying we shouldn't enjoy our food, our beer and our families?
and what does bring well-off have to do with any of this?
I think the word that comes to mind here is obfusciate
I figure the word is "obfuscate".
But that's not your problem. Your problem is that you're trying to fit some square pegs into round holes. How in the world did you imagine my words to mean the exact opposite of what I said?
OK, I'm editing here to try to be "nice", not knowing whether the above is actually sincere, or just another livid retort.
The tools of demagogues historically have been alluring offers like "A chicken in every pot", "Circuses and Bread for the Masses", promises of government largesse for the poor. But any fool knows what really counts is having powerful or influential "friends" or "connections", like Mitt Romney hanging out with the Bush clan, or Obama going to Martha's Vineyard to play golf with the finest people.
Is that clear enough?
And so far as I'm concerned, if anyone prefers beer or food or fun to politics, the world should not be run by schemers who are doing things that cut him out of the loop so far as politics is concerned. The problem is we have a few people who want to exert disproportionate power.
The people who make use of clever tactics to defeat the common public will are almost always "fascist". The word comes from Latin, and means "connections".
In my book, state socialists are fascists if there is an elite inner circle. Communists are fascists because they have an elite little inner Party circle. The "communist" leaders live in posh homes while the workers subsist in cold one-room apartments and stand in long lines to get a loaf of bread. "Communist" is a lie, a sort of left-hand in a puppet show.
"left and right" in politics is generally a lie, because in fact those who seek political power are always going to the "connections" they have with influential or wealthy backers, seeking the money and media support for building political power, which generally requires passing out money to all kinds of folks who value their "connections" and their little streams of wealth that depend on government spending somehow, or legislation affecting their business interests.
If this isn't clear enough, it might be your own problem seeing a simple viewpoint about what has gone wrong with our government.