It’s starting to fail as a system of manufacturing consensus. largely because of the internet, people who get access to the internet run head first in to stuff that contradicts fundamental assumptions that have been drilled in to them. Go to these areas and you’ll see a lot more dissent than you used to.
It’s really hurt a lot of people’s willingness to trust any “authoritative source”. It’s these sources fault for creating these absurd echo chambers and not questioning what would happen when they inevitably failed.