Any advice for somebody starting on Grad school? I will be starting this fall.

As an undergraduate I did not take advantage of any networking or any other opportunities in my university. I am looking to change that. Any advice would be appreciated.

Hey y'all. Writing this post as I am new here and feeling a bit unmoored in the process of applying for PhD programs. I specifically want to study civil wars, gender based violence in conflict, and asymmetric warfare. Here's an outline of me as a prospective student:

• Summa Cum Laude, 3.99 GPA in Undergrad, triple major in Political Science, International Relations, and English-- from an incredibly small and obscure program.
• Small program meant more opportunity to participate in faculty-mentored research. I must have participated in at least five different research projects over the course of four years-- albeit none published.
• Student leadership extracurriculars galore, founded a literary journal outside of school, sat on administrative committees as a student rep, organized against administration on DEI issues (successfully)
• Have presented four times at a regional conference (MAPACA)-- most recently as an independent scholar (not working with or from a university)
• App. would likely include letters from college dean (retired), heads of programs for my majors, hopefully a second dean.
• Worked two years post-grad in STEM communications (environmental justice), overseeing the marketing, events, communications, admin assistant duties for a small but influential nonprofit run by big names not at all relevant to Poli Sci.
• Have done a couple not too flashy internships in programs run by major institutions/entities (Smithsonian to name one)

My questions:

• How strong is my profile?
• Should I hold off on PhD applications and go for a masters and hope to have a publication by the time I graduate to bolster my application?
• I'm in my mid twenties and am hoping to have a family sometime in my early thirties, is it worth it to go directly for the PhD, despite having a slightly lackluster portfolio, in order to get my career rolling before it's too late (or too complicated?)
• What the heck do I put in my personal statement?!

Any advice is really appreciated. I know this is reddit, but please be nice!

There is a somewhat pedestrian belief that part of how the elite manage to retain control is by dividing certain sections of society against each other and therefore keep them distracted from massing their strength and dislodging the elites.

This sounds like a plausible strategy, but do we have concrete examples of this actually taking place.

Let's just point to the elephant in the room and say a lot of proponents of this theory will point to Jews. Some seriously believe they engineered both World Wars in order to pick up the pieces.

Some milder examples cited are an expansion of welfareism to create a dependent poorer class and create animosity between it and a working middle class. I have heard the Chinese being allowed to spread fentanyl in order to further sow chaos in the middle class.

Again, I have no conclusive study, they are just fragments I picked up here or there.

Anybody have something more concrete to prove this theory if it has actually been implemented inside any society?