This is the old "freedom/security" debate in the guise of interpersonal consent. Governance has always involved coercion at the individual level, because governments rule with force, and a certain amount of force is necessary for order and security; without making that move to unify under some law, a population gets mired in low-level disorders and disagreements. It can be a really shitty Hammurabi-style eye-for-an-eye law, legitimize slavery, rape, etc., but if it protects the interests of the ruling class and is not an immediate threat for most of everyone else, it sticks. Thus, for thousands of years, most people lived as peasants, and enjoyed equality and fraternity with their immediate peers, but few freedoms around property, invention, travel, or other such actions that might threaten harmony in society.

But the consent of the people does exist, as a mass body. It takes quite a lot for a critical mass of them to decide that the government is no longer legitimate and disorder would be preferable, but if they do, the government is pushed into crisis. And when governments make breakthroughs, it's in the moment of crisis where leadership is forced to either make a big concession or be pulled down by the mob. In between crises, the status quo sticks and politicians jockey for position within it instead.

What that never translates to is the individual who sticks out of the crowd, arguing for change, getting special treatment. At all times, even in the era of post-Enlightenment reason, they are viewed suspiciously, because good enough is good enough, and they might just be another "bad guy" (criminal/barbarian/spy/rebel/etc.) trying to pull a fast one. They get no credit; as with business and innovators vs. fast followers, it's the people who come afterwards, using more polished rhetoric and building existing small movements into large ones, who tend to turn those ideas into reality.