I believe most people are sincere. They buy the idea that this is anti-democratic.
Another group is simply using this to aggrandize themselves. See Sharpton, Shabaz, et. al.
Perhaps the largest forces are the unions. They [[and to a lesser extent their patrons/members) have been the best beneficiaries of taxpayer funded benefits which you either believe are appropriate and fair -- or you might believe have created a 2% of public employees that enjoy benefits they don't share with others -- while yet maintaining that them getting theirs is the road to everyone getting theirs.
Your premise that loss of patronage, nepotism and theft is driving this is in the right direction, but I think that most people are simply protecting their privilege. They don't see the skimming/patronage/nepotism as systemic.
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