> Rather than expecting a human being to behave in certain ways intrinsically (i.e., normative ethics) we tend to assume they will behave in the worst way possible, and then pass laws to supposedly prevent that behavior from manifesting.

I would disagree and have the inverse position.

If you look at the laws regarding removing Supreme Court Justices, senators and other representatives trading, removing misbehaving countries from the EU and Nato, etc. I would say that overall they are mostly optimistic in the sense that they aren't prepared for such worst case scenarios.