It bothered me a lot, to the extent that I still have vivid memories of it, and I also hate the TSA with every fiber of my being.
So I think it might just be a personality thing.
Even for frequent fliers, the TSA is pretty far down on any rational list of complaints about government. I fly almost every week, but in the past 12 months I have probably spent a lot more time at city hall on a stupid residential parking permit than I did in (non-customs) airport security lines.
In addition to personality, a lot of people project much larger political ideologies onto the TSA. You see a lot of that even in this comment section.
Only if focusing exclusively on direct interactions.
From an ideological perspective, I don't think it's projection (your wording) to observe that in their current form they align closely with both general government authoritarianism and the exercise of federal power over the states.
From a pragmatic perspective, I think it's perfectly reasonable to be alarmed about how such security measures seem to normalize invasive government behaviors in general. Societal norms and values aren't static, so how we do things in the present can and does affect how the public views things in the future.
Once I even accidentally packed a small toolkit in my carry-on rather than my checked luggage and they let me keep it!