Politicians' Self-Interest Incentives
This cluster centers on criticisms of politicians prioritizing re-election, campaign donors, lobbyists, and personal gain over constituents' interests and societal good. Discussions highlight misaligned incentives, corruption, and how politicians act against public benefit to maintain power.
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Yup. Sadly, our politicians care more about getting re-elected than doing what's right for society.
Getting people to vote against their own interests is the central goal for at least 1/2 of all politicians.
Those damn politicians helping people just so they get the votes.
The job of the politician isn't to make things better, it's to get re-elected. In this respect their actions are quite shrewd. Making things worse may help them!
The problem is many politicians who have power to change it or remove such person are dirty and to keep their mandates, prefer to not talk or do anything about it! On the other side the current voters are brain washed or manipulated through presents during the elections to vote in someone, so it'll be a long journey to reverts things here.
You are personifying "the people" or "the state". Your argument does not make sense. Everyone has their ownn priorities, resulting in this situation. Not all politians are corrupt, it is just very hard to change things if all the money is so overwhelmingly against it and the topic is not big enough to really enrage the public.
Spoiler: Because they are more interested in pushing their own politics than helping people.
People paid $$$ to politicians to not have that happen.
Politicians don't care what their constituents want. Americans overwhelmingly support basic gun-control laws, access to legal abortion, single-payer healthcare, and lots of other issues. Politicians only care about what their lobbyists and financial donors tell them to care about. That's the sad truth. We created this perverse system, so we can reform it when we choose. The only way to reverse this is to make elections publicly funded and reform campaign finance.
There are 2 options:1) giving them the benefit of the doubt, there might be rational reasons for it that I’m not aware of - unlikely but possible2) a politician’s primary objective is to get re-elected and accepted/appreciated by their peers. They are usually rich enough to withstand whatever crisis is plaguing their country anyway, so they aren’t afraid of the consequences of their actions. Therefore, politicians probably benefit from what they do now more so that what they’d get if