This was the point I was trying to make. No, we aren't there yet, but we're on the slope and it's getting more slippery every day.
The DDR aka East Germany ended in the 90s, and the Franco regime in Spain ended 1975 with Francos death.
It is debatable if one should also count the Yugoslavian/Serbian government which existed until the mid-90s as oppressive - I certainly do, Miloševic rot in pieces.
Oh, I almost forgot the rest of the Soviet block... so you basically have oppressive regimes as low as 20-30 years ago, leaving a LOT of people with first hand experience.
But typically, the sort of people who blithely compare the US to a police state do so by invoking the Nazis. I wasn't going to credit such arguments with that much subtlety or self-awareness, since they seem to come from a sense of prejudice and knowledge of pop culture rather than history. Although you're right - there are a number of recent police states and dictatorships which the US does not resemble.
That scares the shit out of me, and I don't even live in the US. Maybe your government is nowhere near Mao or Stalin, but all the required pieces of oppression are being rapidly put into place, so be very hopeful that two elections and a terror attack from now someone won't decide to actually use those tools.