The thing is, it's not strange at all. Graft and corruption were the usual way throughout most of history.

Over the last 80 or so years, we have, at least every once in a while, tried tackling those issues. For a variety of reasons mainly related to economics, the US government is now headed by people who want to return to the old ways, mainly for their personal enrichment. So it's, I don't know, 80 years of attempts to do better, and ~5920 years of the status quo.

Elections have consequences.