So nothing has changed...
“Well — since from abroad no great tidings are brought,
Let us see what at home there is, worthy of note;
Why here we find little to trouble our heads,
Except paper-battles ‘twixt Demos and Feds;
Abusing and squabbling and wrangling and spite,
Though I, for my life, see not what they get by’t,
Unless ‘tis the pleasure their venom to spit
And make folks believe they’ve abundance of wit”
Governor Lewis Morris of New Jersey was complaining of the same thing years before that. Morris co-wrote the first play in America. It’s in his handwriting in the Princeton Archives.
Address to Lord Lovelace
Lewis Morris, March 12, 1708/9
If th’ Addressers are Angry ‘tis by no means unfit
That at once they discharge both their Spleen and their witt,
Since the Town is obliged they’le thank ‘em no less
For a Scurvy Lampoon than a Fawning Address;
They’re both helps to discourse, and though never so mean
The world can discern ‘twixt the Witt and the Spleen;
And Honest Will Bradford is not so Morose
But he’le publish their Talents in Verse and in Prose;
That the Town mayn’t be wanting to render due praise
To those who So justly meritts the Bayes.
As Ravens and Night-owls their Voices betray
So Asses are certainly known when they bray.
And Spight of the Noise and bustle they’ve made
Mankind will believe that a Spade is a Spade.
That Bullies and Bankrupts, and Men without Store
Dull wretches that have not one Virtue or More,
The Pests of the Country, whose Practice has been
To flatter the Governor, and Lie to the Queen,
Have right to no favour in a Well-govern’d State
But to Swing in an Halter, or peep through a Grate.