You overestimate rich folk's ability to woo masses while staying completely hidden, with some ultra nefarious agendas. There are some ways to achieve some stuff but there are many conflicting interests even up there.
The simple, but way more sad fact of life is - people, when we create large enough population, are pretty stupid. We are well capable to fuck ourselves up without anybody behind the wheel driving it. And its not just 'them', its all of us.
Humans are not that great, individuals can achieve greatness in some narrow meaning (and since its pretty rare its so celebrated, confirming what I write), sure but overall we are pretty dumb highly emotional beasts, trivial to manipulate like a baby doll. 99% of that is via emotions, the aspect of our existence we have almost no control of.
The simple, but way more sad fact of life is - people, when we create large enough population, are pretty stupid. We are well capable to fuck ourselves up without anybody behind the wheel driving it. And its not just 'them', its all of us.
Humans are not that great, individuals can achieve greatness in some narrow meaning (and since its pretty rare its so celebrated, confirming what I write), sure but overall we are pretty dumb highly emotional beasts, trivial to manipulate like a baby doll. 99% of that is via emotions, the aspect of our existence we have almost no control of.