Those who have money, connections and who are willing to put in the effort rise to control institutions and governments. That’s unavoidable, but the author may not be wrong in seeing a way around it. The “circulation of elites” means that elites are constantly changing, adding new members and groups as others fall away. It could also refer to the repudiation of one elite at the ballot box and replacement with another, couldn’t it? We don’t escape from elites and oligarchs, but we may have some control over which ones govern us, so long as our votes actually do count and are counted.
1) How fair are elections if the electorate is increasingly composed of recent immigrants who don't share the values that defined America at its founding? And how fair are elections if the electorate is submerged in propaganda funded by the current set of wealthy elites?
2) How do we break free of this cycle if we are not allowed to say that democracy is a scam? One good thing about an open monarchy is that the populace knows where the buck stops. With the current hidden oligarchy we are supposed to blame Biden if things go wrong. Just like we were supposed to blame Trump even though he was never allowed to be completely in charge.
If we ever get to a situation where journalists are allowed to tell the American people that democracy is, and has always been, a scam then we may be getting somewhere. If everyone realizes that democracy is not about the people telling government what to do, but the people choosing the next set of elites to tell us what to do, then there is hope.
Then people will be more careful about which elites they choose. Maybe having gone to Yale or Harvard will now be considered a black mark rather than a hallmark of good leadership qualities.