State capture to fascism

Some examples

“State capture is usually discussed in the context of international politics and countries with threatened democracies. Scholar Elizabeth Dávid-Barrett defines it as “a type of systematic corruption whereby narrow interest groups take control of the institutions and processes through which public policy is made, directing public policy away from the public interest and instead shaping it to serve their own interests.”

Right-wing state capture is increasingly a threat within U.S. states, which are systematically being taken over by Christian right leaders and their corporate and wealthy supporters through a combination of gerrymandering, voter suppression, organized and coordinated propaganda, and privatization. Public institutions that often serve as venues for free debate and social change — such as libraries and universities — are under aggressive attack.“

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In other words, we’re talking about controlling the behavior of the state at the root level, in order to create a specific type of society (in this case, a fascist society) and desired policy outcomes, regardless of what the people in that society or their elected leaders support. Which is of course totally consistent with how fascism, a top-down primarily*legalist* system of anti-democratic control functions; if you’re an American in particular, you’ve already seen this concept in action across a broad number of purportedly “non-political” instruments in your society – the courts, school boards, election officials, and so forth.