ProverbChallengeAmerican origin1931

You can't fight City Hall

Meaning: Entrenched bureaucratic power overwhelms individual resistance; institutional forces outmatch personal effort.

Origin: An American saying about the futility of battling government bureaucracy. By 1931 the humorist Arthur "Bugs" Baer could call it "the oldest hunk of grammar in existence," and it is often linked to the political machines of 19th-century New York.

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