When "inverted totalitarianism" finally turns right side up in front of our very eyes

Dictatorship and fascism are immanent in the structures of our entire economy and government.

A matrix of total control and domination has been established which tends to be mostly cloaked by an outward appearance of independent institutions (city and state governments, courts, media, etc), rendering it invisible to most people. Author Sheldon Wolin referred to this as "inverted totalitarianism".

A notable centerpiece of this regime is corporate globalization and its "distributed value chains". Combine these "distributed value chains" (which have expanded exponentially even over the course of a mere twenty years) with the body of law around the Interstate Commerce Clause of the US Constitution, and a weapon of mass destruction results against which any democratic institutions are virtually impotent.

How does this work? In the course of time, the courts have expanded the scope of the Interstate Commerce Clause to grant, by default, essentially unilateral power to the executive branch to rule by decree on any subject considered to affect "interstate commerce", and to override practically any decision of local or state governments on any subject considered to touch on it. Absent an explicit safe harbor (eg, California's expanded authority under the Clean Air Act), the scope for action on a state or local level on practically any important aspect of our economy or society has radically diminished, and only grows weaker over time.

Open your lunchsack. Are any of the items inside it (the packaging, the ingredients, etc) from outside your state? Interstate commerce.

The expanded power of a totally unaccountable executive to rule by decree has grown over the course of decades, and is the real "Enabling Act" that gave us a monster like Trump, not fantastic "Russian hackers". And we can and should expect far worse yet.