machine politician

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English

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Noun

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machine politician (plural machine politicians)

  1. (US) A politician who belongs to a small clique that controls a political party for private rather than public ends.
    • 2021, Mark Lawrence Schrad, Smashing the Liquor Machine: A Global History of Prohibition[1], Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 413:
      It wasn't that these ward bosses were universally bad men, but the qualities that made for a successful machine politician or boss were the opposite of those that made for an honest public servant.
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