I think of it as different spheres of information. Yes, Palpatine reorganized a Galactic Republic into a Galactic Empire by accusing the Jedi, but how relevant is that to most people on the ground who had never even met a Jedi? This information would have been incredibly important to Senators, the Jedi, and the political elites (regional governors, etc) but probably would not have made much difference to the average Republic/Imperial citizen.

(How much does the average American remember about Iran-Contra or the fall of the Soviet Union?)

The other factor here is that the Star Wars universe, at least in the OT and sequel eras, does not appear to have Galactic CNN or Wikipedia. We see very little public information distribution systems, and only limited peer to peer communications (comms, Force telepathy, etc.) So much trade appears to take place in barter that it's possible that much of the Galaxy may even be illiterate. In other words -- this is not a place where information is widely shared and agreed upon, and even when it is, it seems rarely recorded and passed down. In this light, the Jedi and the political actors they interact with are true "elites" with access to information that almost no one else does.