Comment by InitialLastName

"Politics as a zero-sum game" is a self-fulfilling prophecy that's only true if you see it as "competing over who gets all the power". In a more sympathetic perspective, politics is just how communities self-organize, make decisions and build compromise between the needs and interests of their stakeholders. Especially at the local level (where the feedback path between "make a decision" and "affect peoples' lives" is the shortest and most accessible), that can mostly involve people being available to do the work that needs to happen to build consensus and get anything done done to improve the lives of the community members.