The problems that happened during the Clinton admin (with the exception of Whitewater) weren’t so much corruption as they were short-sighted neoliberal trade deals and hostility to organized labor, which accelerated the process of hollowing out the country. But this was also an unusual period in US history due to the end of the Cold War, so this administration could be an exception. Most of the scandals from this period appear quaint.

An under-examined axis of this problem is that people choose to believe in corruption because it's better than the alternative.

It's way more comforting to believe that Bill Clinton's buddies (or whoever) got rich selling industrial America overseas to the cheers of the progressives who thought all that stuff was dirty any way because at least that way it looks sane and planned and rational, albeit selfish, than it was done out of ignorance or malice.

And once enough people believe in the corruption, it manifests itself because it's perceived as how things are.