It's true that many on "the left" / "the media" were going to freak out even if Trump did exactly the same thing as Obama. But this fact is distracting many honest and sincere conservatives from the more disturbing fact that Trump did not do the same thing as Obama, but in fact did way more in a very reckless manner. (Besides, if it was the same thing Obama did, it wouldn't have required an executive order.)

Stopping new applications from one country for six months is not the same thing as cutting off refugees from all countries who had already passed the process, out of the blue with no warning, stopping people at airports until judges stepped in. halting this process from one country is not the same as cutting off all immigrants from seven countries with no warning, including legal permanent residents who happened to be visiting home. The green card policy was only reversed after already disrupting lots of lives, and the details are all still very unclear and confusing.

Partisanship blinds both sides to the real issues. Many liberals freak out about everything Trump does. Many conservatives, who previously criticized Obama's executive orders, react to this by showing more concern about leftist hysteria regarding abuse of power than the actual extremely concerning abuse of power itself.