I think it is more of a transferable power situation. The people with actual power grant some of it to useful idiots, teach the idiots that they are better than those who would oppose their will and then let them run wild. When the idiots are no longer useful or become too great a liability, the access to power is cut off, they are removed and the next batch is brought in.

This can backfire (the rise of a specific "Bohemian Corporal" comes to mind), but that requires at least some sort of charisma and strength of will which these bozos lack.