Politics is about making the country a better place FOR YOUR GROUP, whatever that group may be. There are many groups, with competing, incompatible definitions

Politics is about making the country a better place FOR YOUR GROUP, whatever that group may be. There are many groups, with competing, incompatible definitions of "better." That's why "politics" exists in the first place. It's not a bunch of enlightened scholars competing to find the best solutions to hard problems, it's any number of tribes fighting to secure a piece of the pie for their people. So yes, it's absolutely about winning. Losing means that your group suffers, and eventually that your group (ideologic, geographic, economic or, grimly, even ethnic) ceases to exist.