Why Did People Comply?

This said, the imposition of required masking was most certainly at least top-down. Bottom-up social movements rely on shame and social exclusion. We saw that, of course. Top-down social control relies on the force of the state. We saw that too.

There's nothing wrong with my neighbors requiring masks for their pool party. I can voluntarily wear the mask, or not attend. It's my choice: nothing has been forced on me and nothing has been denied me without my consent.

There is plenty wrong with the state requiring me to wear a mask in public, or to shelter in my house except for time-, activity-, and location-boxed exercise, or to avoid peaceful assembly for certain purposes at threat of having the justice system turn it's eye (and the long arm of the law) my way. I don't care if a supermajority think oppressing people on behalf of the safety of everyone is the right way to handle pandemic disease, because it isn't ethical or even allowable under most of the forms of government we've built. It's telling that the majority (maybe all, I don't have a counterexample) of mask mandates were instituted with executive powers.

If such thing were to be desirable, it should be required to pass through the halls of lawmakers, be enacted into law, and stand the scrutiny all other laws should be expected to face. That that process takes time, may not result in the initially desired (or any) outcome, and that any resulting law may be struck down by the courts are all features or the system that help keep the public safe from tyranny. In the interim, the bottom-up pressure that should be driving the lawmakers should also drive the public. If it doesn't, it's probably lobbying, not a bottom-up movement.

They were more than capable of isolating themselves and letting the rest of us live our lives, but they chose to freak out and push the politicians to impose their desires on the rest. After all, my neighbor did not have the authority to have me arrested for trespass if I showed up at a public park during curfew.

Politicians were more than capable of telling these people to go pound sand and stay isolated if they desired but they chose to go along with it. So maybe not 100% too down but pretty close to it, IMO.