With the rapidly worsening of the material conditions of the general population in the ‘west’, will we see a rerun of the early 20th century? I feel we are approaching the point where the bourgeoisie are so desperate to cling on that the ‘democratic’ institutions of today might be in danger.
In the formal state institutions it’s subtle as you said, but in a lot of other material manifestations of state power it’s not subtle at all. It’s widely known by now that a major portion of cops are literal klansmen and neonazis, and they are the living state, its arm with which it manipulates social reality.