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Either you're not familiar with how propaganda works or the historical rise of fascism, but when humans are the target and every weakness has been studied, you're looking at one of the most effective ways to control a society against their will that has ever been created.
The cruelty IS the point in that it creates a society wherein lawlessness is so pervasive that trust does not exist and everyone is more and more psychologically self-reliant, disbanding opposing groups before they even start.
In such a society, everything is a lie, so people tend to choose whatever statements make them feel, departing cognition in favor of emotion. This, in turn, creates room for authoritarian, dystopic governments that owe no obligation whatsoever to their citizens and see them primarily as factory/cannon fodder and marks to be fleeced, with both in-groups and out-groups that can be consistently played against each other with ongoing success.
So while Fox News turns every truth into a lie and every stranger into someone to be feared, and public policy is also used to turn people into terrorists against each other, and it just keeps getting worse with life for most getting harder and harder, and meanwhile the most angry/fearful among us are happy to have their own rights stripped away from them because it's also stripping away the rights of others -- "hurting the right people" -- the cruelty at all levels does indeed have its reward, and we are actively watching the rise of fascism in the US by the same exact means, and through the same stages, as in Europe 90 years ago.
You call "cruelty is the point" as a doctrine silly and wrong, I call it a great way to get from an open, democratic society to a closed authoritarian rule in less than a generation, and history is full of it, even in 20th century US.