Originally Posted by
ynvaser
I think you underestimate someone as successful as Trump in a leadership position. Most people do politics as a career, they have to suck up to 'x' and 'y' to get ahead, which means obligations later on. Eventually, when you get to the top, you have tons of people with dirt on you that you have to appease.
Sponsors also become a major issue, since you have to do as they say in order to stay funded.
Then you have Trump. Doesn't owe anybody anything, doesn't give a flying fuck about his political career because he's already massively successful. He can do what he wants, how he wants it (within the confines of the system of course) without an image to uphold, or a career to take into consideration while doing it.
I'm a huge fan of making politics a non-paying job*, so only those without self-interest can take part. Corruption would still be somewhat of an issue, but you'd get a lot of people that want that power to do something meaningful, rather than be an empty suit collecting a paycheck.
*(In Hungary, being a member of the Assembly is a job, with pay. Not sure about other places, such as the US. )
I think that's a fair point, but you also have to consider who is buying off politicians and why. People like Trump. This could easily be him cutting out the middleman. So, although he doesn't have the same tangled connections lifelong politicians might, he's still part of the establishment and part of the problem.
As for making sure people don't become entangled in corrupt practices in office, that seems to me more like a problem of moneyed interests than compensation. I'd almost agree if we were saying that compensation for legislators should be more based on economic performance and social polling so they have a vested interest in bettering the country, but giving them no incentive at all might create more problems than it fixes. A good place to start would be to publicly fund elections and ban all campaign donations, lobbying, and potentially even the appearance of corruption with threat of removing the eligibility to hold or run for office and maybe jailtime depending on severity.