Oh, spare me that rhetroric. Protestors in the 90s and especially the 2000s felt just as disenfranchised. That's how you end up protesting in the first place. And those were the nice ones. The stories my parents could tell you about the 60s and 70s.
It's not like "don't be an idiot" is a struggle only now. I was in protests back in a different millenium where the smart ones were already standing in front of cops and bank windows to stop the idiots from throwing rocks at them and spoiling the whole thing.
The despondent "you just don't get it" online discourse is pretty new, though.