Independently of what GDPR was meant to do, the end result is that you click the Accept button to make the box go away. If there is a Decline button, the urge is to avoid it, in case being tracked is a condition for using the website.
In retrospect, having a DOM API where cookies may be set without granting access was a huge mistake. Forgivable, because we didn't know any better.
Local Storage is less forgivable. We were privacy conscious at the time.