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First, they engage in crime, and/or using others to survive.
Then, they start to brainwash victims to fear them, respect them, support them, and/or join them.
As they gain success, they gain power socially, and they increase their efforts to make others fear them, respect them, support them, and/or join them.
They start to take stuff over, and make changes to support their lifestyle(s): media, entertainment, press/publication, news, governance, education, the economy, etc.
The more success they get, the more they convert others to be this way, too, until it becomes rare to be a moral, and loving person, a person at high risk of being lynched, just as the criminal/user of others was at risk of being lynched originally.
Once it's that bad, you're in a hardcore kleptocracy.
Welcome to the modern world.

Even "family" things are kleptocratic.
Ever noticed that Disney loves to pair up a naive, good-meaning person with a thief?
And, Disney is openly flaunting that we live in Kleptocracies, as the thief becomes king in a kingdom by there being but a princess, whom marries the thief.
(Or, in Cinderella, the golddigger's female, and does not rule. But, hey, yes, she factually did take over rule, in the United Kingdom, for example.)

What can you do?
You can't run away, as there's nowhere to run.
That leaves fighting.
How should you fight?
Like they did. Reeducation, and boycotts. (They boycotted education about NOT doing those things. And, you can boycott education to DO those things.)