You may remember senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the guy whose seat was handed off to Hillary Clinton...
He said, “Politics is all about who gets how much and when.” You can bet this bit of politics is a trade of some sort.
Moynihan was one of the last of the sane Democrats.
As you noted he openly admitted that Democrat politics was patronage politics.
He also understood that America’s cities were turning into dumpster fires—and it was the Democrat Party that was responsible for that and needed to own it.
I actually had some respect for Moynihan.