Do they care about hiding it? After all, they control or have influence over: all mass media, forms of instant & mass communication, and the state security apparatus. As long as the last group continues to provided for (food on the table, roof over the head, good quality of life), they have nothing to fear.

Yep....

the problem is, that revolution is just two missed meals away, and with people living on the edge (due to huge costs of living), just a tiny unforseen "thing" happening, can cause those two missed meals, and angry hordes of people lynching the politicians.

> the super rich don’t even seem to be trying to hide this mischief

They don't need to. Talk to normies, they love their pods, Doritos, Xtreme Mountain Dew, sportsball, porn, celebrity drama, and Instagram.

The product that elites provide to normies is far, far, superior to bread and circuses by every single hedonistic metric you can think of. They love it.