Authorities don't seem to understand that their trust is earned. It's like they can't even conceive that it can be eroded. Lies and half truths are told so often and for so minor issues that it can't possibly make sense from a cost-benefit perspective, if behind the scenes it's indeed "noble lies" and "greater good", as some generous people seem to think. If you tell a noble lie every other day, nobody will trust you. Why should they?
I have a feeling that what we're seeing is a technological issue. I don't believe that most people in politics understand or know how to use the internet, so to them their tactics make sense: obfuscate and manage information for the citizens, because what's needed is their approval, not understanding. Common tactics for this include simply pretending there is no information which runs counter to their narratives, or slandering those who speak out against them.
They don't seem to realize that the internet makes their tactics extremely visible to anyone who has a memory and access to a search engine. All of their statements are semi-permanently somewhere on the internet, in chronological order.
They do realize there's a problem however, and their response has been to infiltrate the floundering but still widely respected legacy media companies and attempt to get tech companies to support their narratives. This is also clearly visible to many people, but not known widely enough to stop them.
In effect, they're competent in 20th century propaganda techniques, but unable to convincingly adapt them to the 21st century, and that's why we're seeing this insanity. There are a lot of people who distrust them out of instinct, but are unable to articulate their distrust with proper information, and so come up with wild claims (like Bill Gates microchipping people). There are others who straight up reveal the truth (Snowden, Assange) and get "taken out" one way or another.
Many other people have a vested interest in wanting to believe the institutions, either out of fear or because they are benefiting from the status quo in some way - ie. the Zoom class. They rationalize the unethical propagandizing and attacks on human rights as being "for the greater good" and participate in the essentially state-sponsored slandering of opposing voices.
What's dangerous is that people are becoming more and more detached from reality, one way or the other - propaganda or conspiracy theory. Of course, on some level the propagandists are right: there is a lot of misinformation on the internet. They however refuse to acknowledge that they are on the other side of the same coin, or that they are in fact the ones with all the power.
