Nothing new, politics as usual
"No, sir, I will not yield! And this same man, Mr. James Taylor, came down here and offered me a seat in this Senate for the next 20 years if I voted for a dam that he knew, and I knew, was a fraud. But if I dared to open my mouth against that dam, he promised to break me in two."
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
"If you ever injected truth into politics you'd have no politics."
- Will Rogers (1915)
"The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet."
- Mark Twain (1890's)