In my experience, there’s two main cases of “trying to do good but fails and ends up making things worse”.
You try halfheartedly and then give up. This happens when you don’t care much about doing good.
You do something in the name of good but don’t look too closely at the details and end up doing harm.
#2 is particularly endemic in politics. The typical political actor puts barely any effort into figuring out if what they’re advocating for is actually good policy. This isn’t a bug. It’s by design.
How does a person who keeps trying to do good but fails and ends up making things worse fit into this framework?
In my experience, there’s two main cases of “trying to do good but fails and ends up making things worse”.
You try halfheartedly and then give up. This happens when you don’t care much about doing good.
You do something in the name of good but don’t look too closely at the details and end up doing harm.
#2 is particularly endemic in politics. The typical political actor puts barely any effort into figuring out if what they’re advocating for is actually good policy. This isn’t a bug. It’s by design.