Is Americans' patience as limited as in the past?

In 1983, a frustrated Colorado Democratic congresswoman named Pat Schroeder referred to Ronald Reagan as the Teflon president, for his tendency to be held blameless by the public for all his messes and misstatements.

Richard Nixon wasn’t so lucky. In 16 months, Watergate dragged him from an approval rating of 68% in 1973 down to 24% the summer he left office.

Public opinion is a funny, fickle thing. Americans tend to ascribe to the no harm, no foul theory of governance. If speeches are only symbolic and threats empty, they are willing to let Reagan be Reagan or Trump be Trump. Blustering about illegally seizing power is forgivable, so long as you don’t mean to do it. Last week a 26-year-old aide broke the code of silence in Trump’s inner circle, alleging that the former president really did mean to do it.

Maybe this blows over, just as the Access Hollywood tape and countless other transgressions. But no one smells the direction of public sentiment like Trump himself, and you get a sense he’s worried the winds are turning.

Nixon isn’t the only cautionary tale. An interesting parallel played out in Oklahoma 40 years ago, when a system of government and a way of life were upended when the public finally discerned that its politicians had gone too far.

Now the deepest of red states, in 1980, Oklahoma had a Democratic governor (admitted to the Union in 1907, 20 of its first 22 governors were Democrats), a Democratic U.S. senator and on the local level, Democrats dominated the state’s county commissions.

Virtually all of these commissioners were corrupt. The voters knew it, and the commissioners knew they knew. Under Oklahoma law, commissioners paid the salaries of judicial officials, so, surprise, there was no effort to prosecute.

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The typical grift was to take 10% off the top of county public works projects, materials and equipment. It was so universally and dependably 10% that it was almost as if it were written into state law. Gravel, lumber, concrete, vehicles, machines, office furniture — all of it was subject to the surcharge, which went into the commissioners’ pockets.

If anything, commissioners were all the more congratulated for the system that got things done, be it a freshly paved road or a new building for the county fair. There was no real reason for the con to end, even as the federal government was getting wind of what was happening.

Politicians and suppliers alike held to a strict code of secrecy, which held until one woman agreed to answer some questions. Dorothy Griffin owned a lumber yard in a small, remote corner of the state, a mom-and-pop enterprise that seemed to be moving an overwhelming amount of product. Curious, an IRS agent called and asked what was up. For reasons no one quite understood, Griffin gave a full explanation, and even led them to a barn where she had saved years' worth of bogus vouchers.

What had been going on was far worse than anyone knew. Along with the 10% surcharge, commissioners across the state were routinely ordering materials and supplies that were never delivered at all. So the full price was split between the commissioner and the supplier, and no one’s road got paved and no buildings got built as a result.

News of the scam wasn’t a surprise, but the scope of it was. “It's nothing new," a state bureaucrat said in 1981. "But I was really amazed it was this bad. I knew when a guy bought a little bulldozer he got to keep something for Christmas, but I just can't imagine signing a voucher for equipment that wasn't delivered."

By the time the investigation was over, hundreds of commissioners and suppliers had been convicted. Of the state’s 231 commissioners, FBI agents said they were aware of only “about 10” who they knew for sure were clean.

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If there was one group that, when all was said and done, came out benefiting from the corruption it was the Republican Party. Overnight, a public that had turned a blind eye to corruption was suddenly enraged.

The Republican Central Committee pounced, pumping cash into local races and recruiting Republican candidates from amidst the sage, teaching them the essentials, such as which doors to knock on and how to tie a necktie.

Democrats remained in denial. Even as he pleaded guilty, one commissioner protested, ''I'm innocent. My family knows I'm innocent. Jesus Christ knows I'm innocent.''

To which the judge responded, ''You're just as guilty as sin.''

Perhaps the country is more dependably partisan now than it was then. Perhaps there is too much noise from too many sources to achieve clarity. Trump and his supporters should hope so, because in the past the American people have shown that their patience has limits.

Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Grift ignored for a while, but American patience is finite