In the small tight knit towns? I have seen some, but in my experience usually the occurrence goes up as the size of the town goes up. Rumors of any kind can spread rapidly in small towns. That can come back to bite the people (and their family) doing it.
In my experience, corruption is worse in tight-knit communities, but because the community is so small it winds up having a tiny impact / nobody cares. You can see an example right now in the Matt Gaetz case -- he is under investigation only because a corrupt county tax collector had been under investigation; that tax collector was under investigation because he took taxpayer money and bought a bunch of servers that he planned to use for some cryptocurrency side hustle, and then wound up burning down his office (apparently did not understand wiring and started an electrical fire). To put it another way, had it not been for a fire, the fact that this tax collector was embezzling the county's funds would have gone unnoticed, as would his involvement in the sex trafficking of teenagers (which is where the story with Gaetz starts).
People only pay attention when things are happening at a scale they consider worthy of their attention. The reason corruption is less common at the higher levels is that people are focused on higher level officials; meanwhile, the fact that their local officials are breaking this rule or that rule goes unnoticed, unreported, or worse, happens with everyone's full knowledge and just gets shrugged off.
Gaetz is a US House representative. How is that local corruption or abuse of power? Did he actually use his position, or was it just that he committed a private crime while in power?
Also you mention a county tax collector. I wouldn't consider that a tight knit small town. I think there is a lot more corruption at a county level than a small town (from what I've seen).
I sort of get your point about more eyes watching someone the higher they go. Some of it is also the position of those watchers and their opportunities. In many small towns, people know a pot about you and you have plenty of nosy (for lack of a better term) neighbors. Arguably, they make for better watchers.
Not continuing the argument, just wanted to point out the the reason I mentioned Gaetz is that the whole investigation into him started with the investigation into a corrupt local official, not that I was calling him a local politician (he obviously is not).
Is there a meaningful distinction? I have lived in four states, in everything from a huge city to a small town, and in every case "county" officials were as local as politicians can be (in NYC the county officials i.e. borough president and staff are actually less powerful than the mayor, but obviously that is the exception). Personally I divide the US system into three levels, federal, state, and local, with "local" including all county offices. Is there a reason to view things differently?
"...and in every case "county" officials were as local as politicians can be"
I would be interested to learn more about this. I have also live in multiple states and this doesn't sound like any of them. Municipalities always have some form of one of the following: mayors, councils, school boards, constables/police, magistrates, etc.
"Is there a reason to view things differently?"
Yeah. I see way more corruption at the county level than the local level. Most of the circumstances and scenarios I laid out in previous comments would not apply to county level officials, nor even to large municipalities. I was strictly speaking about small towns. The most important part is how information is gathered and spread. Small towns are notorious for information being found out and spreading rapidly. That oversight would not be the same in other settings. These mechanisms don't exist at the county level. They are far enough removed from their constituents that they can operate without the same watchful eyes.
