Tyranny is Terrific!
Conservatives once swore the government would turn violent under Obama. It didn’t. But now they’re fine with it.
What’s happening on American streets right now is something the right wing warned us about.
But under a different president.
I remember conservatives warning, with absolute certainty, that Barack Obama was going to unleash his “thugs” and “goons” on America. That his military would roll into red states. Doors would be kicked in. Guns confiscated. Conservatives rounded up, disappeared, shot. Freedom of speech taken away.
They said this was why they needed their weapons. To resist “government tyranny.” To fight back when the jackboots came.
But the jackboots never came. At least, not then.
Obama served two full terms. The military never occupied American cities. Conservatives weren’t herded into camps. Red states weren’t invaded. People weren’t grabbed off the street by masked thugs. American citizens weren’t gunned down in cold blood. No takeover of the media.
At least, not then.
And yet today, many of the same people who screamed themselves hoarse about that authoritarian hellscape are cheering something that looks an awful lot like it.
They cheer when federal agents kill an American citizen and smear her afterward. They argue that Renee Good “deserved it” — not because of any proven threat, but because of her “attitude,” her politics, the labels slapped on her after she was dead.
They don’t call that tyranny.
Because it’s different when they’re doing it.
When the Paranoia Was the Point
During Obama’s presidency, the American right experienced a full-blown conspiratorial fever.
Militia movements exploded. “Patriot” forums metastasized. Right-wing media was filled with predictions of a civil war between the federal government and conservatives.
One of the clearest examples came in 2015, during Jade Helm 15, a routine multi-state military training operation.
Far-right media figures — including Alex Jones of InfoWars — claimed it was a dry run for martial law. Training maps labeling states like Texas and Utah as “hostile” were treated as proof that the Obama administration viewed conservative Americans as enemy combatants.
The hysteria grew so loud that Greg Abbott ordered the Texas State Guard to “monitor” the U.S. military to protect civil liberties.
At the same time, FEMA camps were supposedly being built to lock up conservatives. Viral videos claimed the government was stockpiling millions of plastic coffins in Georgia to bury dissidents. Executive orders were cherry-picked and twisted into evidence that Obama could seize all resources and force Americans into labor camps.
None of it was real.
But their imagination was revealing.
Preparing for a War That Never Came
Out of that paranoia came armed groups who insisted they were defending the Constitution.
The Oath Keepers and Three Percenters were founded explicitly on the idea that the federal government would soon turn violent against conservatives. They published lists of “orders we will not obey,” framing themselves as the last line between freedom and tyranny.
That thinking nearly turned deadly during the 2014 Bundy standoff, when armed militias descended on Nevada to confront the Bureau of Land Management on behalf of rancher Cliven Bundy. Federal agents backed down — not because Bundy was right, but because no one wanted bloodshed.
The moment passed.
The war never arrived.
The threat was imaginary.
And Then Came the Irony
Now, under Donald Trump, many of those same people have abandoned every warning they once shouted.
Seemingly untrained, unvetted, unidentified federal agents wearing military-grade tactical gear operate with sweeping authority. Armed enforcement actions happen in neighborhoods. Killings are justified. Victims are labeled “terrorists” before their bodies are buried, before any investigation. Due process is treated as a nuisance. Oversight is mocked.
Former members of the military who remind soldiers they can’t obey illegal orders are called traitors.
And instead of resistance, there’s applause. Applause for the idea that Americans should shut their mouths and comply. Do what you’re told. Know your place.
Instead of suspicion of state power, there’s hunger for it — so long as it is aimed at the “right people.”
Turns out, their Obama fever dreams were all just projections on their part.
They weren’t warning about what the government would do.
They were telling us what they were willing to accept — even demand — once they controlled it.
The Conspiracies Came True — Just Not the Way They Said
The conspiracy theories of the Obama era didn’t come true under Obama.
They are inching toward reality under the man who is their hero, their messiah, their “retribution.”
The military didn’t occupy the streets for a liberal president. Federal power wasn’t unleashed to silence conservatives. FEMA didn’t disappear dissidents. There were no hints about canceling elections.
Instead, a segment of America has decided that state violence is acceptable — even desirable — as long as it flows in the correct political direction.
They didn’t fear tyranny.
They feared being on the receiving end of it.
But now that they’ve got the power, tyranny is terrific.