You are giving way too much credit. They're not on the defensive of protecting their wealth from "redistribution", but rather on the offensive of extracting ever more wealth away from those in the productive economy. Economically, this is done via printing new money and financializing the lives of the plebs.

"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."

This quote is usually levied at voters personally, as a condemnation of social programs - the same induced "culture war" to distract from the grownups' looting. The quote is actually much more applicable to politicians (of both costumes) promoting the policies paid for by big capital, which has consistently succeeded at getting itself ever more corporate welfare - stock market bubble, housing bubble, healthcare trainwreck, defense spending, covid giveaways, etc.