"The way to get it done for their side is just to keep the most people as fat, dumb, and happy as possible and just watch society slip down the cultural slope gradually and without unrest."
Yep. Our unseen, would-be masters - the owners of Federal Reserve and most of the world's other central banks - have been paying persuasion experts to sleepwalk us into their NWO for several generations now. They own the MSM, they control our schools and universities and they secretly employ or control through blackmail many of our political "leaders."
Open warfare would put the outcome of their plan at risk and they are not going to let that happen.
They are very good at managing the mood and the actions of the masses and don't mind taking an occasional step backward to tamp things down when necessary.
Yeah, things will have to change drastically in my opinion to allow sustained widespread civil unrest. Like you say, the folks who dig the way the culture is going have no wish to scare the frog out of the pot.
Freegards