Tyranny is Terrific!

Conservatives once swore the government would turn violent under Obama. It didn’t. But now they’re fine with it.

Gregory Bovino and other federal officers march by the Newberry Library in Chicago's Gold Coast as part of an immigration blitz show of force. Photograph: Brian Cassella/TNS/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

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.