Because that has literally been the history of the past 10 years.
When people criticized the left, nobody was arrested, nobody got put in jail. During Obamas term, despite the fact that the Patriot act was renewed, nobody ever went to
Its only when right wing people started getting deplatformed for anti vax or race realism rhetoric is when this whole idea started that "liberal governments are actually evil and want to control every citizen and suppress free speech", which all contributed to Trumps victories, and consequently Republicans proved that they were the ones anti free speech in the first place.
Yea, I like how quickly they moved to jailing people over stuff as trivial as jokes once they got in power.[1]
[1]https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/17/politics/retired-cop-jailed-o...