Citizens believe that politicians are there to serve them.
Instead politicians are there not to serve but to rule them.
They rule by being more powerful and richer than the common people.
They get money from the Military Industrial Complex, the Pharmaceutical/medical/insurance Industrial Complex and the Media Industrial Complex to make policies that benefit all those industrial complexes. The biggest source of profit being the military industrial complex which sells billions of dollars worth of weaponry in one sale.

The politicans use the govt agencies to continue the wars so that they can keep sending billions of dollars of Aid to the affected countries in the form of military aid. Essentially, they are using the tax money from the people to buy billion dollar weapons from the industries that are feeding them money on the side.

Look at the situation right now. Why on earth would it make sense to give 200 billion dollars to Ukraine instead of using that money to do good for own citizens? Although it is termed as aid to Ukraine. What is actually happening is the money is going to the corporation in the US to buy the weapons, which gets shipped to Ukraine.

The politicians make billions while they pass on peanuts to the citizens. But then again, the peanuts are better that what they would get elsewhere so that is why this system is still working.