It was always that bad, it was just better at hiding it in the past. Anyone who grows up poor has always known what's up. There's a reason the crooked rural sheriff meme exists... If it wasn't for massive amounts of racism folks would probably recognize the same patterns in the cities.

It's not new, it's just that the dysfunction got so big that it started impacting the lives of white Liberals. Fuck, go read about native history in the US. They knew what was up from the beginning.