> Astroturfing and fake grassroots campaigns further undermine people's trust in what they

Or maybe they (and other tactics) are the primary cause, not secondary.

Regardless, the sad and ironic thing about it is that it seems likely many people aren't learning the lesson about institutions practical limitations, but instead just exchanging for worse ones. Even more fun, plausibly in some areas this seems to have created a negative feed back loop on the institutions themselves.