It all comes down to racism really. The civil rights movement in the 50s and 60s made some people pathologically angry. Alot of organization like the Council for National Policy, which is the parent foundation of the Heritage Foundation and many others were started as a result.

Those organizations have been working hard for decades to put their people into government, acedamia, media, and industry. Their approach is very authoritarian and fascist, buts its driving force is racism.

So fastforward to now, and we have an awful lot of hatefull propaganda being spread, we have politicians cutting school budgets to keep people dumb, we have non-existant labor unions to remove all resistance, we have universities putting out anti-vax studies, and we have "journalists" who no longer push back.

If you follow the money, it always leads back to one of these CNP think tanks and its always racist.

Jane Mayer wrote Dark Money almost a decade ago and it even more true today. At minimum, go read over some of the reviews or a summary.