I think he separated the political class into two piles.
Pile #1: People who took a little and did a lot. Not selfless but OK.
Pile #2: People who took a lot and did as little as necessary. Selfish and despicable.
He never strayed from pile #1.
He disdained, hated, feared and would lay his hands on pile #2. When one of my uncles was found to be a serial wife-beater, my father took him aside ... and knocked him bloody into the trunk of a car. Not onto. Into. Ending that particular wife-beating behavior for good, the family legend goes. The trauma lasted a generation, through the kids (my cousins). But it was truncated. The echoes dimmed. In the next generation, in their kids.