A civil oligrarchy is a well ordered rule by few over the many. It dispenses rules and order to maintain power. That's not inherently bad, the governing could be good because it doesn't want to rock the boat, but instead govern to retain the power structures. Rules, norms, and function ensure the status quo. Even if not entirely free or helpful to the average person, you can expect how your day will go. How interactions with that government by the few may proceed. You can voice your opinion, not be punished (harshly), but not be sure it will change anything. The government functions but changing it to work for more people is purposefully difficult.

A kleptocracy is an unordered rule by few of many. It dispenses rules and order towards a singular purpose. Extraction. That is not good in any sense for the average person. The government functions solely to reward the powerful. There are rules and norms and function, but only to keep the extraction making possible. Even then, they can change to benefit extraction making. So long as you don't shine a light on anything, you're likely fine. If you do voice your opinion, you might end up like the CEO of your company who took issue with paying a new "tax" and found themselves forcibly enrolled in an Olympic diving lesson onto a highway. The government is weaponized to extract and it will punish when people try to muck that up.

That ends my explainer. I say the US is now kleptocratic because power, money, and influence are all being siphoned away, at alarming rates, to people in government. Its passed corruption within a government and is a government for corruption. So, the extraction was dialed up to mind blowing levels, sure, but tilting us into kleptocracy is that the government is weaponized to prevent any impediment to the process. Do note, weaponization of government to extract and benefit just a few doesn't need to be with force or violence, either. Using government to do nothing, too, when it should normally have done something, is weaponization, and I think a more sinister kind.