I usually fall in the "all law enforcement is bad" part of the population too. But I don't think law enforcement in any society has ever not attracted these type of people you describe. I believe the "culture that's been present in law enforcement forever" you describe is completely unchanged.

To me, the more interesting question would be: why is law enforcement getting away with so much as of late? And the answer ties back to the current administration and the signicant part of the population behind them. If so many americans weren't cheering on ICE and cie., none of this would fly and it would blow over almost immediately. You get authoritarianism when authoritarian thinking wins. Authoritarian thinking wins when complex socio-political and socio-economical reasons I don't care to go into today.

The main thing I'm trying to say here, I guess, is that I reject the slippery slope fallacy ("get age verification today, get 1984 tomorrow"). If you want to fight authoritarian practices, find their source and fight that instead (the "how" is left as an exercise to the reader).