One more point: it is indeed ironic that the original philosophy of goverment of the admirers of the mob was that of a small government of minimal powers governed by a strictly interpreted Constitution (in fact, some early Democrats held the United States to be not a nation but a "compact" of nations). We are so accustomed to "activist central government" as a means of leftist attempts to alter human nature that we tend to forget this today. Yet however great the irony and however it happened, it is an undeniable fact of history that it is the Jeffersonian political tradition, the tradition that began by advocating a miniscule government in the name of radical democracy, that eventually morphed into the party of "big government" as we know it today. After Jefferson and Jackson came people like William Jennings Bryan (whom I admire for his religious views) who advocated nationalization of the railroads, a federal income tax, limits on the amount of property a person could own, etc. Much of the American far right seems to be the old socialist populist worldview newly converted to
laissez faire capitalism (first the "robber barons" were heartless capitalists, now they're secretly behind Communism!). At any rate, despite the reverse in policy regarding the size of government, there is nevertheless a straight line connecting Jefferson and Jackson with today's advocates of a totalitarian centralized state.
I do want to go on record as agreeing with Black Elk that there are far worse things in the world than mere graft and corruption, and I'd take Boss Tweed to any number of today's politicians. I'll also always admire him for his creationism and support for Israel, but I'm an Old Republican and I have long regarded it as a tragedy that we have forgotten where we came from.
The irony is delicious that the "advocate" of the common man, Jefferson, was a TRUE aristocrat while the "shill" for the plutocracy, Hamilton, was entirely self-made, an illegitimate orphan from the islands without influential friends or sources of power outside his own brain.
You earlier mentioned you were from a rural area, if you were from a big city you might not preceive the corruption of the big cities machines so benignly. Particularly when they develop election theft to a high degree. Without those machines the Party of Treason would be a mere, unpleasant memory. And the US would be much more united and stronger thereby.