I think the idea was that they were so rare that most people had never met one in their entire lives or even heard of one being active. Then too they didn't take credit for stuff they did, and while people like Padme knew, yet they were also the ones most likely to be killed during the transition to the new order).

But the big one is that the Emperor did a strong active disinformation campaign - e.g. COVID is fake so don't worry about it, just get back to work in the sun and that'll protect you - altogether leading people to believe, or at least say, that the Jedi were "fake news". As in not really, but in an authoritian world, it had better be, or else, capiche? That's the part that I worry we all need to learn, as in soon, to deal with our new reality: that Truth no longer matters, so much as adherence to authority/compliance.