Do you understand why Occupy was infiltrated and broken up?

[starroute]

3. It doesn't have to be just one reason

Politicians feeling threatened because of their wealth and their insider trading and their hopes of lucrative lobbying jobs after they leave Congress is certainly one explanation.

A second is that our messed-up system of financing campaigns means that getting elected depends on pleasing the money people rather than pleasing your constituents.

A third is that party elites priorities their own power and influence over anything else, even getting candidates elected. In fact, keeping control of the party machinery often means they prefer running a dutiful robot to endorsing someone who might actually display signs of independence.

And a fourth is probably that there are people who sit down before every Congressional session with lists of who's already safely bought and sold and make plans for how to neutralize the others, with blackmail being one favored method and marginalization another.

But that's just Congress. When it comes to Occupy, there's the additional question of why so many big city mayors -- most of them Democrats -- were ready to role over and call in the cops at the first sign of dissent. There I suspect the influence of local elites, the same ones that are pushing gentrification and trying to sweep the homeless off the streets, but the mechanisms aren't as clear. Perhaps some fine-grain scrutiny of Cory Booker might help illuminate the process.