Whether it is true or not, a good narrative will win people over most of the time.

This is

why Chris Hedges is right when he says the most important skill in politics and consumer culture

is artifice.

A perfect example of this is the election of Donald Trump in 2017. Trump ran on a

populist, “man of the people” campaign aiming to appeal to the common man. He touted that he

was not like other politicians. He did this despite the fact that it was at odds with the facts.

Trump was born into money, and a majority of his policies favored the upper class, such as tax

breaks for the rich, and big businesses. All this did not matter because he was able to use artifice

to craft an untrue narrative of himself as a self-made millionaire fighting for the working class;

even though it was completely false. This use of artifice proved to be successful as Trump ended

up winning the 2016 election because of the narrative he created, not because of what he actually

wanted to do. This truly solidifies the claim made by Hedges that the most important skill is

artifice.