He got more votes after people knew exactly who he was. I don't think he's lost many of them the more 'out loud' he gets.

Sounds like it's time to form a union with everybody else to force him to stop endangering everybody else's wallet then lol

You should recontextualize that for them: "when you come in sick, you are reaching in to my wallet and taking the money I should be owed, and may need, for stuff like 'oops my entire gallbladder needs to be taken out or else I'll die'. All because you want to be teacher's pet: you should be handing money out like its candy (through cashapp or venmo or whatever) when you come in sick, because that's only fair, and paying the company money from all the productivity lost by making everyone else sick. If you don't have that money to hand out, maybe you shouldn't be coming in sick."

Or, y'know, if they're so gung-ho about everyone having shared misery: maybe it's time to advocate for a union.

I believe he believes it's 'the right to force people to listen to what you have to say, regardless of their will or desire to do so'.

something "clicked"

Probably a pen before it wrote a very sizable check with strings attached.