“According to a recent study involving 5th and 6th graders, it’s not the bullies who are disliked by their classmates, but the kids being bullied.”
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This might be because their classmates are afraid what might happen to them if they are seen to ‘like’ the victims. By scorning the victims they may be trying to protect themselves by quietly aligning themselves with the bully.
Some bullies are abused children venting in public - doesn’t make it acceptable but explanable.
I have always noted that a ‘true’ bully is a coward that can be deflated with an aggressive response or ridicule that strikes deep.
However, I fear that some of these bullies are developing personality disorders which will become more obvious and even more damaging in adulthood. And yes, those types are rewarded because, from childhood, they have been crafting a false image of themselves that ‘plays well’ in the boardroom. They pose as tough, courageous, brave when they are not. They pretend that they know all the answers yet don’t bother to actually know the answers (e.g., they won’t prepare, study, extend their knowledge unless forced to do so).
Obama is a ‘wanna be’ bully. Failed at it but still poses as one. The ‘I won’ answer he gave to repubs - he studied that from bullies that terrified him. He was a ‘classmate’ who learned to dump hostility on victims around him, to protect himself from bullies, until he got older - and learned that in politics it works better if you pretend to care about the victims. So that’s why he became a community organizer. Because he failed at being a bully.
In some communities and schools, the bullies are gang members and future (if not present) career criminals. In situations like that, telling kids to “fight back” can be dangerous. It’s much better to get kids out of that environment and home-school them if possible. Also, there is a huge variation in physical size and strength among kids, esp. at the middle school level; kids who are bullied are likely to be small for their age. Unless they are highly skilled at martial arts, they don’t really have a chance in a fight. In my middle school, the bullies were often goons who had been held back 2 grades or more, so they were much larger than anyone else in the class.