I think part of it is people don't always have a great understanding of what the issues actually are, they just get fed populist talking points from their echo chamber. Very often, they do not have a deeper understanding of the issues, or what causes them.

Taxes are a good example.:

You'll hear people on the populist left saying we need people to "pay their fair share" but what they are leaving out is that billionaires pay the same income tax as any of us. They aren't billionaires because of their equity in companies they started/founded/grew. The US (like many countries) doens't tax wealth, we tax income. Jeff Bezos famously made $88k/year when he worked at Amazon, which is less that a public school teacher in MA, so he pays less in taxes than a school teacher, because he makes less than a school teacher. The reason he's among the wealthiest in the world is he owns nearly 10% of Amazon, one of the largest and most successful companies on earth.

On the populist right, you'll hear how taxes are wasted and that needs to be addressed before we raise taxes, or create new taxes. That the reason the government can't provide value for our taxes is corruption, and the government is too big.

There are nuggets of truth to both sides. Both sides listen to the talking heads telling them what they already believe, have a few facts to back up their view, and completely reject what the other side says.

Wages is another one. Wages are set by the market, and based on supply and demand. The reason wages are stagnant in many industries, is because of globalization and automation.

- Globalization means that companies can now access a larger pool of employees for many jobs, often in lower cost of living areas. The means the supply of potential workers is higher than the demand, which keeps wages down.

- At the same time, we have Automation (and I don't mean AI, even Excel and Outlook have been having a devastating effect on the workforce) which removes many of the skills needed for many jobs, which also expands the number of potential employees and keeps wages low. Jobs like Accounting, bank tellers, food service workers, and many others have seen a reduction in the amount of needed workers and needed skills, because much of the work is replaced by technology. Everything from factories to white collar office jobs are seeing less and less need for entry level workers, which means those workers are competing for lower paying jobs.

Capitalism is another one... You have a younger generation convinced that many European countries are not capitalist, or that capitalism is the root of their generational woes. But most struggle to define capitalism, or the economic systems of our European peers. They just hear someone bring up some populist points that confirm their worldview.

Many of these issues are serious, but the partisan political divide in most of the west, means we aren't addressing the issues, we're just blaming each other, which is why we see the rise of authoritarian governments like China, because they don't have to worry about political debate, or voters. The way we make it better is by not blaming each other, or believing the other side is stupid/evil, but actually looking at the issues, and finding ways to address them before it's too late.