Maggie's Farm

"Also, his point about "churn" seems important, because in the US lineages go up and down socioeconomically and socioculturally over time. No fixed classes as in most societies and it's not mainly about wealth either."

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Actually, this is one of my major concerns about our country, which is the development of a perpetual elite "political class." There is increasing effort to create dynastic political families such as the Kennedys, Clintons and Bushes. This is partly done by creating "foundations" to keep your political machine employed and intact while you are out of power and trying to figure out how to pass that machine on to the next one of your family, whether it be spouse or child, who will get into political office, especially a political office that effectively can give you lifetime tenure once you get (like Congress). Alternatively, you can get your children employed for relatively large amounts of money doing relatively little, if the employer thinks your family is going to come back into power at some point, and they want to be on your good side when that happens.

As a point in fact, the Obamas already had their machine up and running before he even left office, and now it is cranking into high gear, with both a political purpose disguised as a "charitable foundation," and a continuing standby political army ("Organizing for Action"). You can view the Obama dynastic machine structure here:

https://barackobama.com/