The principles of the Enlightenment (scientific method) via post-modernism or post-positivism (particularly skepticism of power and of myself, and the fallibility of human perception and cognitive ability) work really, really well in the current environment. They are almost a panacea - very powerful. Simply have some faith and use them; it's not hard; and then you are free from the oppressive weight of it all. (And stop wasting your time reading the other stuff.)

From the perspective of those tools, the problems are brazen - if you accept that there is, effectively, a 'big lie' (without one specific liar). That it's possible for so many to be so misled, for the social norms (groupthink) to be so widespread and wrong, is shocking to experience first-hand. Looking at history, it shouldn't be surprising at all.

What prevents such widespread ignorance is the Enlightenment and post-modernism/positivism. It should not be surprising that the problems are so brazen and that the 'old' tools work so well. It's not coincidence; we got here by discarding them, by (bizarrely) disarming ourselves. The results are completely predictable - discard scientific reasoning and critical thinking and you get lies and conspiracies. Throw away post-modernism and you get, almost immediately it seems, the same cults of power and personality that it protects us from. The consequences aren't overwhelmingly clear to observe. Whoever drives the reactionary movement, one of their first targets was those tools and the norms and institutions that support them: fact, critical thinking, education, all the humanities.

(I'm speaking a bit loosely about the philosophical terms, but close enough, I think, for my point.)