Oh man I will never let them read my private comms. So what are they going to do to me? I’m afraid that I, as a good person and father, am going to be punished for not letting them read my private messages. I’m afraid for my future in the EU.
There are parties that truly care about these values, but populists, corporate influence campaigns, and foreign interference successfully casts them as: responsible for immigration, disastrous for the economy, or whatever else you can find.
It's funny, because in my country some right-wing parties hold pro-privacy/freedom parties responsible for everything that is wrong, whereas said right-wing parties have been been almost continuously in power since the early 80s and some of the pro-privacy/freedom parties have never been in power. Yet, the people eat it up.
There is some truth to "every country has the government it deserves".