[veidr]

There is considerable debate[1] about whether or not the US is, in its contemporary form, an oligarchy (including, I suppose, your (parenthetical) refutation of that notion above).

Personally, I'm persuaded by the argument that it is an oligarchy, or at least, it is more one than it is not.

Unlike some (most?) others, where the government is the seat of ultimate power and chooses its accomplices, in the US that arrangement is inverted; the very rich (the few hundred billioniares, and a few thousand of not-quite-that-rich individuals and families) excercise enormous control over the government, without having to directly participate in its execution or hold office themselves.

(And our politicians themselves almost never achieve that level of wealth; many do become rich by ordinary standards, but its clear where the actual power resides.)

So we could quibble about definitions and degrees of words like "oligarch" and "the klept" but in my view the US is clearly more toward the oligarchy end of the spectrum than the other end.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_United_States#...