It's baffling from our perspective, but perhaps not so much if you try to look at it the mindset of its proponents.

It's been sold as "for the children". A very substantial proportion of the population are natural authoritarians, and this is red meat for them. Never mind that "the children" that they profess to be protecting are going to grow up living in an increasingly authoritarian surveillance state, this is what authoritarians want for our future, and they see it as not only morally good, but any opposition to it as indefensible.