I keep up, still have my AER membership, which comes with AER, JEP, JEL, and specialized journals such as Economic Policy, Microeconomic Theory, Macroeconomic Theory, Applied Economics. Great bargain! Though I ignore 90% of journal articles since they're written to pad resumes, not provide useful information. And I stopped believing in economic theory decades ago.
But there is a robust empirical literature, whenever I want to research something I go through notes of recent articles, recent review articles, then hit Google Scholar. Trust Brookings, to a lesser extent AEI, not much else, ignore Heritage Foundation, Mercatus Center, Americans for Economic Progress, etc. No use for any sources that have a strong ideological bias, since I know the pressure to conform, especially for younger scholars/consultants.
Most arguments among economists are the values for key parameters, far less disagreement when it comes to basic theory. Once you accept "all models are wrong," you can focus on figuring out which models are useful, but don't be fooled into thinking a value derived from a model is accurate or can provide a definitive answer for a policy question. Like all good research programs, it's a continuing dialogue.
Problem for noneconomists, they see these disagreements, but can't distinguish when the argument is fundamental, or just the size of the impact, so for example, with tax cuts the argument is usually about the size of the impact on growth, through incentives, allocation of capital, etc. I think most economists would agree that a tax cut will have a stimulus effect, but also raise expectations of future deficits and higher interest rates. And how the tax cut is structured, and not just its size, will determine its impact on growth and income distribution.