Over the past month, two governments faced widespread protests. One responded with mass killings. The other, under popular pressure, appears to be backing down.

On Dec. 28, a collapse in the value of Iranian currency sparked demonstrations among shopkeepers in Tehran which then spread across the country. While it began as a protest against economic conditions, the goal soon turned to overthrowing the authoritarian regime that has ruled Iran for almost half a century.

The government responded with murderous suppression. Estimates go as high as 36,000 people killed, about equal to the number of Americans who died in the Korean War. The regime, supported by a minority of the population, perhaps as little as 11%, fought a war against its own people and appears to have won for now.

In “the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out,” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent at least 2,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and 1,000 Customs and Border Protection officers to Minnesota.

In the protests that followed Renee Good’s death on Jan. 7, demonstrator Alex Pretti was killed by United States Border Patrol agents on Jan. 24.

The Trump administration backed down. The head of Operation Metro Surge was replaced. Two federal agents who fired on Pretti have been placed on administrative leave. Only days after calling Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz a “sanctimonious political fool,” Trump reported he’d had “a very good call” with him. Walz said Trump agreed to consider a reduction in the number of federal agents in Minnesota and allowing a state investigation into Pretti’s death.

In contrast, when the ante was raised by protesters in Iran, armed government forces went on a murderous spree. Why the difference?

Iran lacks the tradition of a longstanding democracy. It moved from monarchy to theocracy in 1979. In contrast, protesters in Minnesota and around the country could draw on a democratic tradition that went back to the Boston Tea Party and before. One reason cited by the Declaration of Independence for breaking links with Great Britain included George III’s maintaining “among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.” The spirit of 1776 burns still in America 250 years after the Declaration of Independence.

Also, in Iran, the government cut access to the internet, so the massacres were not broadcast by bystanders taking videos with their cellphones.