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No we're not, we're talking about the ruling elite, which is not the same thing.
You can't vote the elite of a society out of power. The people who run things, make actual policy decisions are rarely the same people that nominally have the power to do so. I don't like this as a formalist myself but it's just a fact of life.
I mean come on, do you really think Joe Biden runs the United States? That Vladimir Putin decides things on his own without large constraints from his stakeholder's interests?
If we're going to have a serious discussion about the sociocultural dynamics of how a society functions we first have to agree to basic Machiavellian premises. There's an infinite amount of fictional stories you can tell yourself about what's going on, if we don't ground ourselves in pragmatic, value free analysis of power, this conversation is pointless.
What does Joe Biden have to do with crazy hobos in Seattle?
The elected officials of Seattle do not object to the status quo and do not promise any changes. The voters of Seattle do not mind and continue to elect those officials. There's no need to invoke Machiavellian epicycles when the elected officials and electorate are in total agreement on the issue.
It's not the "deep city hall" that keeps the hobos on the street, it's the vox populi.
There is no such thing as "the people" much less "a voice" for this nonexistent entity. The voters of Seattle do not elect the officials, the officials have themselves elected by them.
If a magical dictator took power in Seattle and cleaned the streets by force, the same people that vote for the current representatives that do nothing about it would support him wholeheartedly. There is no point trying to attribute any will to the masses and any attempt to do so renders political analysis nonsensical.
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