Then I started thinking back and saw that the rot started a long time before that.

This is the step a lot of people miss. Sure it takes something of them and theirs being affected to finally wake up to what is going on, but not many then take it beyond that event and ask whether it's been happening beforehand. Far too many will follow the Gell-Mann amnesia effect and compartmentalise a problem which offers the leading cause too much leeway in escaping appropriate scrutiny.