To add into this, those who aren’t benefitting in the now are told, and believe, they’ll benefit in the then, some anomalous point in time in which they “win” the whole game.

They’ll suffer with a smile because “my time will come”. It’s genuinely analogous with a lot of religious rhetoric, the belief that actions now will be rewarded in whatever form of afterlife.

And, much like how one will never truly be pious enough, when the time comes, they inevitably collapse on their own kind.