One tell is that the new admin -- whatever they're up to -- is not policing free speech (except when it comes to Israel, to some extent.) That’s a massive difference because when dissent is allowed, the authorities are much more accountable. When they want to avoid accountability, the first thing they do is silence dissent.

The “deport students who support Hamas” is bad because it can be used as a way of suppressing legitimate dissent, e.g., if a student critical of Israel labeled a “Hamas supporter”, but that’s only one narrow topic, and there’s no “disinformation bureau” or push from Trump to police social media.

Now maybe the Twitter algo curtails the reach of some dissenters, so it’s far from perfect. But you’d have to be dense not to see a sea-change in the ability for people to say basically anything now. Kanye West, in his right mind or not, is testing it out, for example.

And it’s hard to run an authoritarian regime when the people are allowed to speak their minds without legal consequence.