It's all about the incremental change. They make another small adjustment, barely increasing it a little more, and then hit us with a big distraction right after. This didn't used to be as easy back in the day, but with the 24 hour news cycle, low dopamine levels across the board and the inability of anyone involved to realize anything beyond what they're trained to compute, there isn't much going for people realizing it. You have to hammer it in to someone's head that their wealth, hell the entire economy, is being extracted. Otherwise, they simply don't understand what's being said to them. They think it's just another fee they're supposed to pay because everyone else is doing it. Back in the beginning, the only real noticeable tax was a small sales tax on alcohol and tobacco. There were some tariffs too. Boy, things sure have changed. Now we have all sorts of different taxes and for many things that are hard to believe. The catch is that tax law isn't that hard to circumvent and practicing attorneys who do just that are in high demand and used without doubt past certain wealth thresholds. So, in short, no one pays taxes unless they're too poor to hire someone to do their taxes or diversify their portfolio much.
Actually it's blatent bait and switch. The 16th amendment (income tax) required a supermajority to pass. It was wildly popular. Imagine that. People seriously believed the rich were going to pay!
Wildly unpopular ideas can gain a lot of support by starting out directed at those most perceive as their enemies. If the FBI just came out and said, "We're going to monitor everyone's cellphone and internet traffic" there would be zero support. However, if they say they're starting a revolutionary surveillance program targeting child porn and terrorism they suddenly find themselves with widespread support. The Trojan Horse is still an effective strategy.
Back in the day when Reddit was free speech they brought Ellen Pao on board and she started out by banning subs like /r/jailbait. She was smart. She knew it was an easy target that nobody could really object to. Nobody significant could come out and say "we support people's right to look at sexually suggestive pictures of underage girls" even though it was completely legal. Anybody who saw the writing on the wall and objected was labeled a pedophile. She knew damn well that's what would happen. She started there because she knew it would be accepted. Acceptance of the principle is the biggest hurdle. Once the principle is accepted, changes to its application are seen as small things and almost always face little opposition.
Don't feel superior, because even most people on voat and poal are susceptible to this subversion. Check out how many people say they are for free speech but then also say we should kill or imprison communists. That kind of thinking is like the recovering alcoholic who says "I can drink beer because it's not real alcohol." Freedom of speech isn't freedom of speech if there are things you're not allowed to say. Freedom of religion isn't free if there are religions you're not allowed to believe. Until you're ready to fight for the principle of freedom, which means defending the freedom itself no matter who is exercising it, you don't really support freedom.
In your utopia maybe. In reality the freedom you give to those that aren't on the same civilised page as you, will use it to fuck you up and conquer your stuff.
Too bad it didn't get a majority vote.
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