Big Differences
There is no doubt that there was/is paranoia on both the right and the left.
I was bitterly disappointed when Bill Clinton defeated H.W. Bush.
I admit to a great feeling of loss and concern when Barack Obama was elected. I felt bitter that we had elected someone I considered ill-suited for the job due to his inexperience, his incompetence and most of all, his love of socialist tenets and radical theology.
I think the difference between the left and right was/is how we both reacted to the bitterness.
The right reacted by exercising our own individual rights - in just a few personal examples, I strengthened my family's personal protection by upgrading/adding to my arsenal and increasing my weapons proficiency through training and practice, securing a concealed carry permit and stocking up on ammunition - freely and legally exercising my Second Amendment rights.
The political right formed the Tea Party movement to speak out against a government we saw as damaging to individual liberty - exercising our First Amendment rights - and those protests were executed without a single car being burned or a single window smashed.
The political right saw the bias in the media, so it created/expanded an "alternative" media using the Internet and the free market responded with the creation of Fox News to report on other viewpoints.
The political right hunkered down and focused on what we could do to change it the next time around - because before Obama said it, we knew that elections have consequences. That's how it works in a representative Republic.
These are just a few small examples, the important aspects of which are that we did them without compromising the rights of our opposition or anyone else...no collateral damage to anyone's rights.
We did not call for gun bans or confiscation.
We did not call for free speech to be shut down to silence our opponents.
We did not breach the peace by rioting in the streets.
We did not call for freedom of the press to be curtailed.
We didn't take to twitter with #notmypresident and work 24/7 to mainstream paranoia and delusional thinking. Quite the contrary, we shouted it down, forcing it to the outer edge of our ideology.
No, the progressive left was/is doing those things. The political right focuses on strengthening everyone's individual rights whether they win or lose, the left focuses on taking them away from their opponents.
I've related before how my granddaddy always said to judge a man by what he does, not what he says. Using that standard, there is no question which side is on the side of individual liberty and the Constitution and who is not.