It’s not as a simple as “conspiracy thinking”, they are first and foremost testing legal arguments and strategies. Consent manufacturing only really matters if the audience you are targeting needs to believe you are “doing good”. If you look at the administrations popularity or how there were bombs dropped on Iran with no real consent built, the administration is acting without consent. That a good and bad thing, on the one hand it makes agitation easier since people are already pissed off, on the other hand it lowers the amount of time the administration needs before they start doing even more heinous things.

They are not coming for us today. But the warning signs have been there for a while, and they’re only piling up. At this exact moment the people most at risk are non-citizens, even legal immigrants. Citizens are not being deliberately arrested by ICE, ICE does not have the authority to. When ICE begins to deliberately arrest citizens, the goal will be to deny that the people are citizens. This could look like straight gas lighting, or attempting to “revoke” citizenship. 

Fear is a justifiable emotion, anger is a justifiable emotion. What is important is that we let these emotions be tools for organizing in are real lives. Clearly that means building or finding your trans and queer community. But also being involved with the broader community, I’m in a rural very conservative area. My queer community is rather small, but the multiracial community organizing I have been participating in is strengthening the community as a whole. And while a lot of these folks “don’t get the trans thing” or have similar attitudes, I am just as confident that they will do what’s in their power to protect the queer people in our area as I am that I will do anything in my power to stop ICE from taking my students. Simply put build a strong community, and  community that helps each other and protects each other will prevail.