That's not logical. You could plug in any time period:
"I keep telling people that Washington DC has long been a very corrupt place. They are willing to believe it for every era except 1938-1941. Therefore, FDR tricked us into WWII."
"I keep telling people that Washington DC has long been a very corrupt place. They are willing to believe it for every era except 1963-1966. Therefore, the Vietnam War was all about oil in the South China Sea"
"I keep telling people that American politics have always been corrupt. They are willing to believe it for every era except 1773-1789. Therefore the Founding Fathers were only in it for the money."
Talk like that doesn't prove anything. Believing that government is always corrupt doesn't prove that morality or ideas of the national interest don't exist. It doesn't prove that people never act for non-materialistic motives. Sure, we took down rivals to out power in WWII, but that doesn't mean that crushing our economic competition was the reason we were involved in that war.
I think it was less corrupt in the early years when everyone was filled with a sense of idealism. I think most of the corruption started sneaking in with Hamilton's machinations.
Sure, we took down rivals to out power in WWII, but that doesn't mean that crushing our economic competition was the reason we were involved in that war.
WWII was initiated for very different reasons than the Civil War. Also, 3/4ths of the federal budget didn't come from the Germans and the Japanese the way it did in the Civil War. There is no clear monetary advantage to us from involving ourselves in WWII.