It's less "we let this happen" and more "we were duped into fighting against our comrades over crumbs instead of banding together to ensure our right to more than just crumbs in the first place." The 1% benefits from every culture war that sows division amongst us. We're too busy and distracted to organize or build guillotines.
I'm a power plant operator. Most of my coworkers have chugged the Kool aid in terms of hating unions. We're well paid but the benefits aren't good and the schedule is life-wrecking for the average person. Bad unions exist, but I think that they don't understand the core concept of the power behind collective bargaining. I've seen one person get fired in the 3 years I've been here, so jobs are generally secure, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to gain from unionizing.
They also very much eat up the culture war slop and aren't particularly literate. They're "common sense" forward, which means they don't understand things like tax brackets or geopolitics, but they're very upset about them.
The starting salary for a new American Airlines flight attendant is low enough to qualify for food stamps in some states ( fortune.com )