If a single man could threaten the leading powers of a continent, it means they are not as powerful as they have always portrayed or they do not have the support of the people.
It's not that simple. In this day and age everyone knows that he who controls the media, controls the minds of masses and consequently controls the country.
Let me pat myself on the back a little here. This is my comment from roughly 2 years ago when Elon Musk bought Twitter:
Elon Musk bought Twitter so that he can gain a tremendous power on public opinion and with the US government. As they say in democracies: if you control public opinion, you control the public. And public opinion is formed (and brainwashed) through the social media on top of mainstream media. Having control over one of the biggest social media outlets gives Musk a lot of power.
2 years later and Musk is part of the US government and has had a new department invented for him (Department of Government Efficiency) getting much richer and more powerful. Did I predict it or what?

BTW If you doubt the tremendous power of social media platforms have in brainwashing people, just google some of their examples. Like the genocide Facebook carried out in Myanmar. IIRC Facebook got sentenced to pay $150 billion fine for spreading hate speech leading to the genocide!