[JulianMorrison]

Except, centralization of wealth means that the opinions of a relatively few people control the seeming surface diversity of "influencers" in the USA by holding the purse strings (when the proles resort to crowd funding they can break out of this to an extent, Bernie being an example).

[stcredzero]

The elites rig the elections and the public sphere, while the proles use the one election where they can still sway the vote to vote for dangerous populists as a protest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trrqslUpfdw

Old republican values are relegated to the dustbin, and a civilization becomes a shadow of its former self. This has happened before, and will happen again.