Yeah, the unreasonable C++ hate is real. That said, from the modern perspective, the old versions of C++ do suck very much. If you're not even acquainted with C++11 yet, you should definitely check out C++20.

Rust is less expressive than C, but likewise it does give less chances to shoot yourself in the foot.

C++ is often derided for its complexity, arising from its long development. While it's true that C++ allows many wrong ways to do something, I don't think that should really be a problem. The language's main problem is societal: C++ (and C) is often used by people who haven't bothered to learn the language. E.g. one can't rely on random unknown C++ code handling integer overflow and type punning correctly, so in such cases it's wise to compile with

    -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-strict-overflow

A part of the problem is that C/C++ is so traditionally established, it's taught as as an introductory language at universities, for example. But it's usually taught wrong, because there's no incentive to teaching it right, and trying to teach it right could in fact be counterproductive, if the goal is merely to introduce someone to programming. This is why I think it would be best to teach Python or Julia as the introductory programming language, and (modern) C++ only afterwards.

Rust's advantage in this regard is that it's more centralized, it's lead by a foundation instead of being standardized, so everyone who learns Rust, learns the one, correct way to do things.