I don't take the political world as "worse." Instead, I think that we have to realize that politics is the dimension of our social lives in which people get together to cooperate. They cooperate (we hope) to change things for the better. Sometimes that means that some dumb things have to happen as well...why? because there are always going to be some dumb or selfish people sitting at the bargaining table. Locke's optimism that all people were reasonable and able to see their long term self-interests is a little overly optimistic. Sometimes you have to sit down and work out a problem with a real jerk.

But if at least some of the problem is resolved, we're in a better situation than we were before.

And maybe that is all we can be content with...