It is true that politicians shouldn’t want to get re-elected; rather, they should want to get things done. Whether that means creating, destroying, stopping, or slowing public programs is irrelevant.
It is also true that unless politicians care about re-election, much of the point of having democratic politics — accountability — goes away. Politicos could get elected, do all sorts of crazy stuff, and go away happy.
Bit of a paradox. Fortunately, human societies don’t really tend towards corner solutions.
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