Hitler never won a majority vote, but the vast majority of the German people were complicit in Nazi rule. Even in occupied France, the Resistance composed only a tiny fraction of the population, while the Vichy regime actively collaborated with Nazi demands. Trump is promising deportations on a scale like none other. Mass deportations of Jews, as arraigned by Eichmann, immediately preceded the Holocaust. Trump may – facing the logistical hurtles of a mass deportation regime and further self-radicalizing under the inertia of his own dehumanizing rhetoric, enabled by a bureaucracy remade with political appointee yes men, and granted immunity by a far-right extremist Supreme Court – someday enact policies we may fool ourselves into believing existed only in the past. He has hinted at as much. His lawyers have already defended the possibility of presidentially ordered assassinations, assuming a supportive majority in the Senate—as exists now. But even if he merely carries out his promises, his deportation scheme will cause immense human suffering on a vast scale. Deportees are currently held for an average of two months in poorly maintained ICE camps, separated from their loved ones, subject to forced sterilizations, filthy conditions, spreading disease, extreme temperatures in flooded buildings without electricity, medical neglect and malpractice, sexual abuse, physical violence, coverups, and more. Many are deported to countries where they have never lived, may not be a citizen, face immanent threat of danger, and have no access to work or housing, forcing some to live in contaminated canals. Many leave behind families, jobs, and homes in the United States, where they paid taxes and rent, while being denied a vote. Some are even veterans. U.S. citizens have been accidentally deported.
Both parties have embraced the nativist logic of enacting this ongoing atrocity, and had Harris won she would have continued it much as it is unfolding today, or even at a greater scale, as the Democrats advocated for new restrictions on asylum. But the immensity of what Trump promises will be even more obscene. It will require mass arrest of millions of hardworking, overwhelmingly peaceful people. And the severely overcrowded ICE camps that exist now could not possibly hold them. There’s already not enough food, water, doctors, medicine, beds, blankets, clothes, or simply space for everyone as they are detained. Conditions that are now nightmarish will become hellish. New camps will have to be hastily erected, and their conditions will doubtless be terrible. People are already dying of hypothermia in ICE detention. In the summer, deaths from heat will only increase. The ACLU last July estimated that 95 percent of deaths in ICE detention are preventable. When the proportion of preventable deaths rise that high under controlled, institutional settings, the deliberateness of fatal carelessness becomes obvious. And insofar as murder is already a feature of the deportation system, the deaths can only be expected to increase.
If they can come for the immigrants, they can come for the dissidents, the undesirable queers, pregnant people, and trans kids—just as we have already seen them come for the protestors trying to end a genocide or save a forest. We cannot be complicit. We are tasked with defending ourselves or annihilation.
We are deactivated, atomized people, digitally disconnected and alienated from the world around us. Complicity, under these conditions, begins not with apathy, but the question: “What can I do?” This question is a trap. Alone, all we can do is nothing but howl, and the knowledge of this, so long as we only think of what we can do alone, is defeating. Only when we cease to be individuals is action possible. Everywhere, we must get together. We must find our friends and neighbors, across the physical geographies we inhabit, and with them together rediscover the meaning of agency.
In my last article, I advocated for taking up the critical work of community jail support. No, it alone is not enough. But it is an essential starting point. Without starting points, we become paralyzed, and paralysis is death also. Community jail support is a place where you and your friends can get together to do necessary work and feel the love the community gives back. Crucially, it is also a way to see the reality of things as they are—to go and directly come in contact with the consequences of a so-called “justice” system that functions as a repressive apparatus and continuation of the plantation. All you need is to get some friends together, find the address of your local jail, buy some water, snacks, belts, shoelaces—whatever people need getting out where you live—and hold each other to showing up regularly. Anyone getting out of jail will be overjoyed to have a friendly reception. From Atlanta to New York City, I have seen the joy on many newly freed faces to know that they were not alone, that the community was there to receive them with care. I know, you may be afraid to go near these places. Many are. I was once. The fear is socially ingrained. It is something we must work to overcome so that we might live better by one another.
There is something else you can do as well. The mass deportation regime will rely on, if not your outright cooperation, then your inaction. Most often, this will come in the form of inquiring police officers or ICE agents. The Civil Liberties Defense Center offers know your rights training and materials, including specific advice for immigrants. Even if you are not at risk of arrest, this information is vitally important. Knowing this may enable you to protect yourself, your family, friends, and neighbors. Police rely upon deference to authority, on the false belief that, when they ask you a question, you must answer. It is a trap too many fall into out of reflex. It is necessary to learn to assert one’s right to be silent.
You do not have to take on everything alone. You do not have to fight everything yourself. But we must all do something. The danger we are in must not be understated, even though, like any scared animal, we are liable to freeze. Take small steps to keep moving. Do not look back. Find people you can trust and rely on. Build your capacities together. Protect each other. In this there is safety. But we cannot afford to hide, alone and afraid, in the hope that this storm will blow over. It will not leave us until we force it.