The greatest ally tyranny has in our society is our perception of place.
The Nazi's on TV, the Maoists in the movies, the Big Brother and Police Robots in our novels, are never placed into wide open fields with farm houses and flowerboxes, they are never put into the broad sunny avenues with colorful shops all around. Their environments are dark, brooding and oppressive; The nazi's have stone walled castles and forts built into cliffs, they have dark grey or black uniforms, torture chambers and smoke covered camps, the Maoists have rainy gray days in close urban environments of poverty and violence, Big Brother and the Police Robots have modern, futuristic, urban cities, with windowless factories, artificial lighting, and all the naturalistic elements removed from the environment. While some are dark, and others bright and sterile, they are all presented as oppressive, gloomy, sensory deprived environments. This is the image we have of tyranny, jackboots marching below black stormy skies on the grounds of an ancient castle hewn of gray and black stones, red revolutionaries burning books and musical instruments in small smoky gardens under oppressive gray sky, all-powerful overlords telling us what’s better for us from on unseen highs of futuristic urban-industrial society while their storm-troopers micro-manage, abuse and kill on the gloomily sterile streets below.
The problem with that is, it’s never happened this way. The redcoats weren’t only oppressive tyrants under the cover of the forests, or in smoky battlefields. The Nazi's didn’t just rape and murder under gray skies, inside castles or in smoke covered camps smelling of burning human flesh. But no one can see that.
We cant look at the happy painted houses, with open spaces around them, green grass, sun shining, birds singing and imagine that iron hand of tyranny reigning over it all, with storm troopers and militarized police marching through it, making sure it all conforms to the governmental ideal of "right" and "orderly" and "well behaved". Everyone looks and they cannot fathom it happening within what they see. If they even begin to wonder about it all they can say is "Its not dark, its not visually oppressive, the sky hasn’t turned black and begun to rain - how can their be evil, how can their be tyranny?"
Our society, our popular culture, has lead us to develop a schema for tyranny that is dependant on the classic features of dramatic environments, storm clouds, rain, oppressive construction, fire, smoke, ash, rock walls, iron bars. Breaking free of this schema is incredibly hard, because we (as Americans from birth at least) have no exposure to anything different we have no way to assimilate this idea into the existing schema, and many will not be able to develop an accommodation for it either, at least not until it is suddenly thrust upon them by storm troopers breaking down their door, or marching down their sunny streets. Even if that level of tyranny suddenly became reality, many would continue to categorically deny it except on rainy days.
It is because of this misconception that tyranny is able to make its slow encroachment upon our lives in small forms. People are blind to it because their idea and understanding of the world is warped through their exposure to nothing but “pop culture tyranny”, and they cannot see the reality for what it is.
Flower lined streets, with trees and boys on bicycles riding in front of brightly painted houses, seems to be a place that is free of tyranny. Unfortunately, it is the exact opposite. Such illusory places are the perfect breeding ground for tyranny, because they dull the senses and kill the perception that anything bad might happen.

”If you want to build an escape-proof prison, there is a way. Just don't tell the prisoners that they're in jail. Make them compete with each other for life sentences...Call it home."
Chad Oliver, Shadows In The Sun, 1954.

"I’m only happy when it rains

I only smile in the dark
My only comfort is the night gone black
I didn’t accidentally tell you that
I’m only happy when it rains
You’ll get the message by the time I’m through
When I complain about me and you
I’m only happy when it rains"
Garbage