I don’t think a large portion of the dem voter base benefits from the grift that the dem politicians are participating in. If they were rich and wanted to benefit, they’d just vote GOP. Don’t get me wrong, the rich who vote dem absolutely benefit from the corporate center of the party (which is most of it), but the wealthy class is a tiny proportion on both sides and I was talking about the majority.
And I think you’re giving too much credit to the GOP voters by saying they “know how power works”. The vast majority of them are useful idiots taken in by culture war nonsense continually voting against their self interest.