As to "we": I was born in 1940. Therefore I lived through the growth of this Crap-at-the-Top. But I cannot honestly beat myself up about being the cause of its "success." I never treated anyone this way, and once an adult, indicated to others what I felt about it on the rare moments something of it entered my life. My Dad always judged the leaders he voted for by the best he could tell as to whether they were "gentlemen" and willing to be "Statesmen" rather than "politicians or worse." So did (and do) I. He opposed the concentration of wealth especially monopolistically (he used to deliberately buy a Chrysler made car so as not to hurry the GM or Ford domination, which he viewed as an enemy of the Democracy in the big picture.) I taught about all these things when I could in my classrooms, and helped my community with environmental problems, and invented our county-wide recycling program as a leader in that movement. ... and blah, and blah and blah. The point is that neither I or my Dad (both rather powerful Catholic-based and talented individuals) had any power whatever to stop ANY phase of the JUGGERNAUT of wealth and power (especially when embodied by scum like these current pieces of hedonistic and sociopathic shit.) We never knew crap about the depths of this --- all Trump's crazy character does is shamelessly brag about bits of it in his own (and owned) media.
So, yes. One could have become more of an activist, but it wasn't easy for regular moral fellows to even get the ugly drift. Pollution events, yes. Some of that got so bad that dead animals and a few dead people couldn't be ignored. And both of us tried in those areas (My Dad wrote the anti-mercury contamination policy for his company processes for instance; I invented WMUs Environmental Studies program.) KNOWLEDGE of deep crap was very hard to come by. Now that the technology allows knowledge to be theoretically easy, the current administration has discovered that all one has to do is just say the opposite and create a Schizophrenia of Confusion, speckled with giggling goons ... and everyone gets confused and goes back to their TVs.
We have a poster on this site with whom I agree on basically nothing (I'll not name him.) But he has one insightful point he continually makes. When other posters make strong statements (even generally true and moral ones) but include some sentences casting wide blame on large group labels or even us all, he would say: what do you mean "WE did or do this"? Little people. People just going about ordinary lives. Even when others of us really dislike their voting habits, the folks, the little folks who disagree with us aren't the perpetrators of these horrors. Little people, including me and my Dad, DIDN't "do" or "allow" most of the outrageous crap spewing out of the rich and powerful's assholes and mouths and punches to the rest of the world's groins. Yes, I actually "hate" my images of Epstein and Trump, and several others in various kinds of power. But I have a difficult time seeing any of we little people causing the atrocities they do. Even those who vote for the bastard I believe to be simply and brilliantly deceived --- I wish they'd actually think about it (about what supporting an ego who wants to have his buttocks licked by everyone in his presence; who wants every prize named after him; who calls himself the Chosen One; ... I mean when does one HAVE to see the Pig for what he is? But none of us little people "did" this. If we ever stop and think "do we actually like what we are seeing" and at least cast a vote to balance the Vengeful Prideful Greedy sociopath of a little of his power, that would be nice for almost everything about our world, other than the creators of this crap we've been talking about here.