If you had one billion dollars and someone threatens to take all of it away - how much of your wealth would you spend to save it? A small amount? Half? Most? If your choices where either keep 10% or 0% of your wealth, what would you choose?
How do you define "taking away." Understand that government tyranny has not stopped at financial confiscation. Your liberties are fragile and can be taken away without notice. If you store your net worth in crypto and the government knows who you are -- does anything stop them from imprisoning you indefinitely if you don't comply with their requests to hand over your funds? The whales stay anonymous, as they should. If you're a whale and the government knows you hold crypto, there isn't much you can do.
Like it or not, there are quite the number of really big whales out there and it is in their best interest to defend their source of wealth. Sure, the banks and corrupt politicians have an insensitive to see Bitcoin fall. But someone fighting to defend something will ALWAYS fight harder and longer than someone attacking it.
It takes more than them to fight for Bitcoin. The whales aren't going to be putting up the fight. They become a target.