That last comment by @onealfa makes it abundantly clear to me why governance of this tribe CANNOT and SHOULD NOT proceed based on any sort of ‘Proof of Stake’ governance model. When you have a whale who is on record stating that he will effectively ‘punish’ content creators who vote in a way contrary to his wishes (and no way for them to vote via secret ballot), you have a system that is broken and cannot be relied upon.

To be honest, this isn't far from the truth for most everyone.
Some may not downvote, but they certainly won't upvote, thus punishing you indirectly.

Hive (and anything having to do with money, especially when it doesn't come out of your pocket) is filled with virtual signaling and power plays. I've even seen (and have had done to me many times) people try to sabotage all your curation curation rewards because you voted on someone they felt they "owned" punishing both the author and the other voter.

Just most don't come out and say it and prefer to keep the shadows and pretend they know nothing about it. Never have I seen so much greed, virtual signaling, pettiness, and deceit.