Contemporary politics is best defined as

a. a form of deceit practiced by everyone.

b. what people do to get what they want from government.

c. conflict over the leadership, structure, and policies of governments.

d. the misallocation of "values" for partisan purposes.

Contemporary politics is best defined as C. conflict over the leadership, structure, and policies of governments.

If you just take a look at the current situation in any country in the world, you will see that it is struggling politically because there are many fractions which want to seize power. That is the definition of today's politics, but the situation was the same even before.