In general, most people are just trying to get through their yearly reviews with as little trouble as possible.

Get paid and KIM.

Most people don't want to do the heavy lifting of dealing with abusive management.

And the reasons for that are plentiful, and many are valid. But I am a firm believer that people like you mentioned, and many others I've seen and dealt with myself, thrive the way they do for two primary reasons:

1. Too many underlings being willing to put up with it, for aforementioned myriad reasons.

2. Upper management all too often doesn't see an issue with it, doesn't care, or requires a perfect victim to take action.

#2 is one of the biggest reasons for #1 IMO.

We have someone who so consistently terrorizes everyone beneath her that if you go to any office, and someone finds out you came from her office, they will launch into their personal horror story about this nameless monster, who will inevitably turn out to be this same person.

She's teflon.

One supervisor was leaving, and didn't want everyone to be stuck with her, so she organized a mass HR complaint.

Well, our director put everyone on trial instead.

Oh, you come in late?
Your stats are low.
You did x, y, or z.

Not a thing happened, and half the people dropped out of the complaint entirely after hearing about the carnage of the first several people that went into discuss the issue. It backfired spectacularly, with the end result being a perception that workers simply don't like accountability.

And I've seen plenty of people like her, who always seem to thrive in such roles. I've always stood my ground and said hell the fuck naw, and I fight the battle enough that I get left the fuck alone, while others get stuck putting up with the abuse. The only time I got a bad result, it was when I worked for a temp agency. Nothing happened, and I finally quit on the job.

Thing is, I had documented so much and done so much leg work with my prior complaints, that I had a long ass chat with a manager, and they wound up taking action after the fact. They told me that others had similar complaints, but only expressed them after they quit or were fired. I was the only person who took it up the chain while I was still working, and so that showed that I wasn't just a disgruntled ex employee.

I think if more people revolt, take that stand and ban together, people like your boss would be gone. But it's not that simple, I know.

I got off on a tangent there. But I hope you get the fuck out soon and find somewhere you can be happy and not walk on that glass each day