It was never about actual freedom from oppression with those people, it was just about who was getting their way.

If you wanted to do things like prevent someone from firing or evicting someone just for being gay, that’s oppression. If you want to keep a teacher from just teaching the christian bible as literal scientific truth in a public school, that’s oppression. If you wanted to say people shouldn’t be allowed to own anti-aircraft missiles, that’s oppression. None of those are allowed, don’t tread on me, oppressive fascist state bad.

If however you wanted to round up all the brown people and put them in camps, that’s totally fine by them. If you want to arrest people for speaking out against a hard-right regime, go right ahead. If you want to strip LGBTQ+ people of any and all rights you possibly can, go for it, they’re the “bad guys.”

“Don’t Tread On Me” was always a dog whistle. It was never about freedom, it was about making sure the “right” people got tread on.