I also think we may tend to view our current circumstances through the historical lens of our Founders and their Revolution, one that was ultimately successful. This is good because it makes a visceral connection with our forebears, but it can also be bad because we only see their Revolution with the benefit of hindsight. We tend to gloss over the fact that they had a lot of the same problems: people who only cared about their self-interest in the here and now and who could never be counted upon, people who agreed in principle but didn't want to put their necks out, people who were actively benefiting from the current regime, and the larger mass who were basically indifferent and would remain docile to whoever ended up in charge.
So many people get their bread buttered with Federal butter, that there's going to be a lot of inertia to overcome. That's why their strategy is to make it so that your bread doesn't get buttered unless it's with Federal butter.
ETA - I see IDP already hit this point. I would add that, IMO, you will not even begin to see a hint of active resistance until the regime has already spilled blood. That will be necessary for decent people to decide that resistance is now morally righteous, and that is something that has the potential to proceed like a preference cascade when it happens.
