I'd like to point out that basically following this strategy is how you end up being the A-Hole team lead. This could have been the path OP's team lead took at

I'd like to point out that basically following this strategy is how you end up being the A-Hole team lead. This could have been the path OP's team lead took at some point in his career because someone else was making his life miserable at that point. I'm not going to downvote you, since this is blunt, real talk of how politics work in the real world, and I feel like we need to be aware of it so we don't fall prey to it. But I can see why you are posting under a throwaway. As others have said, this is not the only option and one can just leave & take a break / go somewhere else.