A decade after the 25 January Revolution in 2011, the question if the Egyptian revolution failed or was defeated is one that has sparked high interest and controversy. Similarly, scholars have thoroughly discussed the emergence of the even more repressive and violent military regime under President ´Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi. Interestingly, even though no authoritarian leader can rely only on violence, oppression, and a ruling elite backing him, the scholarly debate about affect, emotion and contemporary authoritarianism is quite limited. I argue that the Egyptian regime needs legitimacy and this is not obtained easily – even less so if one considers the uprisings of 2011 as a crisis of political legitimacy itself. In this paper, I analyse how al-Sisi deals with the legacy of the revolutionary moment while invoking – among others - fear and loathing. Hence, my paper focuses on the affective and emotional aspects of the construction of legitimacy and how they support the supposedly “new” authoritarianism (Armbrust 2017; King 2009; Rutherford 2018; Yefet and Lavie 2021) under al-Sisi. I draw on discourse analytical methodology (Wodak 1998) when analyzing the official speeches of President al-Sisi on the anniversary of the 25 January Revolution (2015-2022) with particular focus on affect and emotions within these performative elements of state discourse. I argue that al-Sisi governs with the constant fear of a repetition of the uprisings of 2011. During official speeches at the revolution’s anniversary, he tries to alter the collective memory of the 25 January Revolution into a state-and-presidency-centered narrative of development, security, and scapegoating. Using this narrative, he constructs his own legitimacy while rewriting the story of the Egyptian revolution of 2011. I argue that his public performances are geared towards a politics of diminishing to discursively unhappen the revolution.