Plausible, certainly. Revolutions and changes of the guard in the halls of power has always come from the disgruntled middle-classes using the working classes as cannon fodder and excuse, while the power classes have always used the lowest class - the Lumpenproletariat - as their eminently disposable cause célèbre and shock troops rolled into one. (Using marxist terminology here, it seems fitting as the power play you describe seems derived from that theory of history and economics.) So getting rid of the troublesome part of the middle classes while fomenting racial, cultural and religious discord and creating a plethora of small groups all clamouring for their special status and thus unable to unite against their real oppressors and profiteers is quite rational if you are in power, believes in societal development as a progressive linear process, and adheres to the capitalist creed of greed (putting profit over people, both in the sense of humans and as your own tribe of people). Also, in the event that there actually are consciously though out plans and plots - why needs there be one Grand Master plan with devious conspirators? Isn't it much more plausible that there are oodles of plans due to lots of intersecting power structures, and even ore actors, all of them pursuing what they perceive as th most rational way to achieve success, and thereby occasionally as with Covid/vaccines acting in concert, while at other times (Russian oil&gas money, Germany/Austria, and the US oil cartels) being in opposition? Note: I don't mean to imply that you personally is engaging in conspiracy theories, not in any pejorative sense certainly. Just adding on a couple of thoughts since you blazed the trail as they say.