Memes That Never Die

The year is 1953. The time being described is 1946-7. A patriotic Socialist art dealer/super spy/ millionaire describes the US government to a young German:

"In the hotel dining room...they talked about the American elections. Lanny explained the peculiar system of American government, in which it could happen that the President and Congress were fighting each other, and everything they said or did was for political effect. Meantime, the bureaucrats would go on running the country as best they could. Congress would try to handicap them by denying them funds and would set up investigating committees which would subject them to hostile questionings."

 (Source is The Return of Lanny Budd, the last in a series of spy novels (!!??) by aging muckraker and self-proclaimed socialist gadfly Upton Sinclair.) But doesn't it sound like something our President might say?