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Well you're not losing to begin with if the policies you think are good are the ones being implemented. Is Bernie Sanders losing when Trump got stakes into Intel? No, he was supportive, he wants government to own more businesses.
Sanders might be losing on other topics, but he wins here and he knows it.
I'll agree you with there. Politics does not do a great job selecting for people who value the health of the nation over their own personal fantasies and desires. They might have some values, but if it's between "benefit myself" and "benefit the country", well we see that the first often wins out. It's a known issue of pretty much any system that those who seek power are disproportionately those who wish to use it for their own personal gain.
More than that - it's a known issue of every system that agents who are optimising for seeking, maintaining and consolidating power within that system will outcompete agents who are optimising for anything else.
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