> The flip side is that simple disobedience has far less effect in states less concerned with optics and values they claimed to live up to than the tail end of the British Empire or the US federal government at the height of the the Civil Rights era

Most importantly, the Civil-rights era US government was highly concerned with optics, because, you know, the world was being swept by Communist revolutions, and the last thing it wanted to do is to provide further fuel to their fire.

The current US government couldn't give two shits about its optics, because none of the people running it can even conceive of there being consequences to their brutality. The tail is wagging the dog.