I’m not sure it accounts for everything, but people tend to embrace conservatism (and yes, eventually Authoritarianism) due to fear. I was very young during the HIV/AIDS scare, but the fear was rampant and very real.

Magic Johnson making his diagnosis public and Princess Diana touching someone with AIDS was international headline news.

People are dumb and fear makes us less empathetic and even dumber.

This is correct for a given transaction, but there’s no consensus needed to open a Bitcoin wallet. That is usually just a private key in an encrypted envelope.