It’s a hard slog to recruit anyone to go into politics unless he’s really into politics or independently wealthy. What kind of person takes a year out of his life to campaign for basically a temp job where, if he wins, he has to leave his career track *and* move to DC, a really expensive city? Why is it a temp job? Because an election loss sends him back home. Whereas 99% of jobs aren’t anywhere near this transient. And with most jobs, you never have to step off your career track. Then there’s the intrusive media questions that no non-politician who’s not a murder suspect ever has to deal with.
Our form of public service is intensely attractive to narcissistic sociopaths and repellent to normal people. So we get what the system attracts.