Trust has been eroded for the last 30 years for many reasons and most of them are due to how the politicians and public institutions have behaved.

In all western countries, if you dig a little, you will find scandals after scandals from the ruling parties or the so called elite.

Why should a lambda citizen believe that there is any sense of trust anymore when those who are at the top clearly have no problem lying to get in or stay in power?

It's the same problem with the media biases. Newspapers and news organizations have completely stopped providing information and started pushing propaganda. Nothing more.

Then we lament the loss of confidence and the demise of democracy in the west.

Increased transparency is part of the process.

Prior to the Internet, it was much harder to keep up with all the dirty details of whatever was happening in your parliament/Congress/government/town hall. Most people defaulted to a certain degree of trust by being happily ignorant.

There is a common note among the old political journalists (I mean 100+ years ago) saying that the practical execution of power was extremely dirty and that blessed is anyone who does not know.

Well, now we all know.