It's extremely frustrating and something I've thought a lot about over the years where we were pretty obviously building towards this outcome. A couple things:

First the "average" american is softly but ideologically committed to liberalism¹ & democracy as fundamental values. From that perspective the mind kind of recoils from accepting this. If this is really what's happening, what does civic obligation demand of me? How does that reconcile with my inability to keep my family safe in the face of a motivated & powerful state that wishes to harm me through them? Easier to believe this isn't what is happening, I don't need to take action yet. A powerful example of motivated reasoning.

Second a significant part of the userbase here, as with the general population, supports some or all of these actions. Simple as.

¹ Like in the traditional sense, ie "a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law" from wikipedia.