What Are the Masks for Exactly?

One issue we have discussed repeatedly during the Trump years is so-called belief as a form of performative aggression. This is something essential in the Trumpian/MAGA world. You believe things that, in factual terms, are patently absurd. But they are also practical. They create permission structures for all kinds of things they already want to do. For an important decree, the absurdity of the professed belief is part of its appeal, especially since the aggressiveness is so deeply embedded in the professed belief. This question arises in a less extreme, though still similar, way in the various ways that Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Trump administration attempt to justify ICE’s behavior.

Let’s start with masking.

We know their basic argument. There are legions of anti-ICE activists. If ICE agents do not mask their faces, they risk being “doxxed.” Set aside whether this constitutes justification for masking. This doesn’t seem crazy at first glance. Demanding legal accountability for ICE agents is at the top of all anti-ICE activism. And the most radical activists can be very aggressive in their tactics. So, could this have happened? Of course. But what journalist Philip Bump was able to determine was that the “doxxing,” the theoretical justification for ICE masking, never actually happened. Not once. It is important to note which definition we are using here. As Bump says, “At no time has an officer been seen doing his job, identified and then attacked. While there have been threats against officers and incidents of off-duty harassment, there have been no known incidents in which an officer was assaulted while off-duty because he had been identified as a federal agent.”