"It Can't Happen Here" Says the Country Where It's Happening.

The real message of "First They Came"

I am, once again, with every fiber of my being, asking Americans to actually learn and not just read our nation’s favorite quote about the Holocaust.

First they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Attributed to German Pastor Martin Niemöller, the above quote (sometimes called a poem) is at the forefront of American Holocaust remembrance. It’s taught in early education and is the last exhibit visitors see when leaving the U.S. Holocaust Museum.¹ While it is presented as a warning against passivity in the face of fascist threats, the actual quote and the reason for its revision hold a vital lesson for contemporary America. The original version, which was altered during the Cold War for obvious reasons, reads:

First, they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist…

Not only is the anti-communist version taught in America a literal form of Holocaust revisionism, but it obscures the author’s message. Initially an antisemite and Nazi supporter, Niemöller was imprisoned in 1937 for challenging Hitler’s control of the church. Inside the Saschsenhausen concentration camp, he continued to support the Nazi regime, twice volunteering for the German Navy during the war. While his poem is often understood as the mindset of a scared bystander troubled by fascism but paralyzed from action, this is not the case. Niemöller wasn’t passive to Nazi crimes — he celebrated them. As a priest, he hated communists and socialists who criticized organized religion’s support for capitalist states. When the first Holocaust victims — members of the KDP (German Communist Party) and SDP (German Socialist Party) — were disappeared by the Gestapo, he was elated.² But as the Nazis expanded the undesirables from leftists to labor leaders, to Jews and social minorities, and ultimately to any critic of Hitler, Niemöller eventually found himself on the wrong end of the totalitarianism he championed.

“First They Came,” as Niemöller’s words are now entitled, isn’t only urging those weary of fascism to fight back — it’s a warning to everyone, particularly the compliant centrists and rightist cheerleaders, that the project they currently tolerate and support will eventually come for them. It is crucial Americans living under the second Trump administration understand this.

The revised version of Niemöller’s poem at the U.S. Holocaust Museum.

Whenever I call the Republican Party fascist or compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, my mentions overflow with accusations that I’m being overly extreme or sensationalist. What many of these comments fail to understand is that I am not saying Donald Trump is 1941 Hitler, ordering the Final Solution and overseeing the military occupation of Europe. I’m saying he’s pre-Reichstag Fire Hitler, methodically testing the limits of a liberal republic to see what he can get away with. And, like Hitler, every time Trump oversteps his authority without rebuke from the liberal democratic system, he not only degrades our civil liberties but sets a new staging area for further encroachments on democracy, individual rights, and equal treatment before the law.

This is precisely what Martin Niemöller warned us of. What makes the German priest’s words so profound is the focus on the first steps of fascism, which are often supported by those who will come to regret it. Only 4% through his presidency, Trump has already taken these first steps. Gauging by the lack of opposition from the media and political parties, it appears that few Americans correctly understood Niemöller’s cautionary tale.

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After Mahmoud Khalil was taken political prisoner by unidentified government agents, Secretary of State Marco Rubio clarified the Trump Administration is not attempting to deport Mr. Khalil because of a crime but because his speech is “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States of America.”³ As the 1st Amendment does not grant citizens protections but instead restricts the government from censoring the inalienable right to free speech, this is a clear violation of the Constitution. And Rubio knows that. He is well aware that the Supreme Court has ruled that legal, non-citizen residents have 1st Amendment rights. Marco Rubio isn’t confused about whether or not the arrest he ordered is a violation of the Constitution. He knows it is and did it anyway because he is trying to end constitutional protections, not respect them.

“Once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders. Such rights include those protected by the First and the Fifth Amendments and by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” — The Supreme Court, Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding (1953)⁴

It’s no accident Trump’s plan to offshore mass incarceration began with a non-citizen Palestinian organizer. Over the last year, campus anti-genocide protests, especially at Columbia, where Mr. Khalil was a student, have been slandered by Democratic and Republican politicians alike. Disliked by both major political parties, Mr. Khalil is persona non grata, making him the perfect person for Trump to step on first as he leads America down the authoritarian road. Unfortunately, the White House correctly assumed the move would go unchallenged. Republicans supported Mr. Khalil’s imprisonment with the expected bravado, while Democrats spent 80% of their statements calling Khalil human garbage before offering hollow cliches about “the rule of law.” I may not be your Ivy League-educated, New Yorker-reading political mastermind, but I highly doubt talking shit about someone is an effective strategy to free them from illegal captivity.

Reading the below statements from prominent Democrats, one can only think this is how Martin Niemöller felt when his communist adversaries were sent to Dachau — passive, permissive, and unconcerned about where this path would lead.

Just as Hitler expanded from incarcerating communists to socialists and then labor organizers, when no one stopped Trump from violating the rights of a single individual, he took the next step. Invoking the Alien Enemies Act, the administration tested whether they’d be permitted to disregard constitutional protections en-masse. Two hundred alleged Venezuelan gang members were arrested and sent El Salvador to be incarcerated in the internationally-condemned Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT). There, the innocent men (they have not been found guilty of anything) will endure eighty-person cells without blankets, pillows, lawyers, books, phone calls, or visitors.

An overcrowded CECOT cell.

Trump and company aren’t concerned with whether or not the prisoners they sent to El Salvador are criminals because that wasn’t the point of their stunt. When a judge ruled them to stop the flight, they ignored him. The purpose of this crime was not to remove two hundred dangerous individuals from American communities but to see whether anyone with power — Democrats, the judiciary, or the media — would accept that due process had ended for alleged enemies of the state. A few days later, Trump’s personal media channel argued due process should be discarded for anyone accused of being in the country illegally. This raises the question, “If there’s no due process, how do you know someone is undocumented?” The White House intends to answer this conundrum by laughing as they lock anyone who asks it in an unnumbered cell.

This egregious speed-run of the fascist agenda is only possible thanks to the lack of powerful resistance. In a recent interview with Chris Hayes, Senate Minority Leader and aspiring book tour speaker Chuck Schumer didn’t just accept Trump’s overreach. He helped Trump go further, stating the administration was only breaking the rule of law if Trump “defied the Supreme Court.” As this is not how the American judiciary works, Schumer’s comment only gives Trump more permission to continue his crusade. If the Trump Administration wanted to challenge the lower judge’s ruling to stop the El Salvador-bound prison flight, that’s fine. They can appeal it all the way up to the Supreme Court. But that’s not what Trump is doing. He’s ignoring the judiciary, and the “opposition leader” gave him permission to continue doing so until his five best friends on the Supreme Court explicitly tell him to stop (which they won’t).

With the Democrats behaving more like a junior coalition partner than the opposition, Trump has begun expanding his persecution to citizen dissidents. Last week, marching orders went out to the conservative media to call anyone who damaged a Tesla vehicle a “domestic terrorist.” With the idea that vandalism equated to a politically-motivated attack on civilians (the definition of terrorism), Trump took to Truth Social to advocate for these “terrorists” to receive twenty-year sentences in El Salvador.

Many media figures were aghast by this statement. They have no right to be. For anyone who has soberly studied the MAGA movement, this was the expected evolution of the fascist campaign. Through a combination of cowardly idleness and despotic agreement, the American political structure has given Donald Trump implicit permission for the illegal imprisonment of Mr. Khalil and the violation of due process for the two hundred prisoners sent to a Central American gulag. Now, he is expanding his scope to include American citizens through bogus charges of “terrorism” and undocumented residency. According to a recent statement from Marco Rubio, El Salvador is willing to incarcerate American citizens, no questions asked.⁵ And as the White House has already established there’s no due process for alleged criminals, the Department of Justice can accuse anyone — citizen, visa holder, undocumented, or any other resident status — of being an enemy of the state, burying them with thousands of other prisoners in the dark recesses of an unregulated foreign prison. While I’m seldom one to credit the Founders, it bears remembering foreign imprisonment was one of Revolutionists’ complaints against the British crown.

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.

The Declaration of Independence⁶

None of this would be possible if Chuck Schumer and many other Democrats were fighting back against Trump’s attack on civil liberties. Instead, they’ve failed to heed Martin Niemöller’s warning, lying to themselves that Trump “surely Trump won’t go that far!”

(Spoiler Alert: Yes he has and yes he will.)

“Don’t be an extremist! Trump would never threaten American democracy!”

For all the campaign trail talk Democrats espoused about Trump being a fascist, authoritarian, or threat to democracy, they certainly aren’t acting like it. The Senate opposition leader is more focused on hucking a book he didn’t even write than he is on liberating his own constituent, while Barrack Obama is promoting his March Madness picks as his successor illegally sells public schools for scraps.

Meanwhile, Trump is quickly moving down the modern equivalents of Niemöller’s list. He started with the most marginalized critics — communists then, Palestinians now — and has taken the lack of resistance as a sign he can keep going. His next target was “gang members,” and soon it will be “terrorists” who rear-ended a Cyber Truck, causing it to explode. At this rate, it won’t be long until Trump has a plausible path to imprison anyone who dissents — protestors, organizers, and anyone who didn’t buy his crypto shitcoin.

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While I would love to argue this is a unique Trump phenomenon that can be eradicated by electorally punishing the Republican Party, it is not. Like most elements of Trumpism, the President is only building on the groundwork laid back when he was doing WWE stunts. There’s a long history of American politicians and media going along with fascist and authoritarian crimes simply because accepting them is easier than addressing them. Once the Republican Party saw they wouldn’t be punished for illegally selling weapons to terrorists during the Iran-Contra scandal, they knew they could get away with anything. And they weren’t wrong. Barrack Obama refused to prosecute Bush-era war criminals or the bankers who caused the Great Recession. Now, every subsequent President has violated international law without fear, and banks are incorporating crypto into already vulnerable sub-prime mortgage packages. The most egregious example is Biden refusing to charge Trump for his January 6th coup, even when the national Republican Party was condemning the assault on Congress. Like centrists throughout history, the last two Democratic Presidents stood by, making wishes on their birthday candles that fascists would respect “American Democracy” this time, even though they’d already shown they couldn’t care less about it. This is the same warped mindset that caused the government to censor Martin Niemöller’s original words and remove the mention of persecuted communists, even from the Holocaust museum. As Washington supported fascist dictators in Spain, Chile, and countless other nations, it was best to pretend attacking leftists wasn’t the first step to outright fascism. But as we’ve seen, the Very Serious People’s toleration of American fascism abroad and crossing their fingers it “wouldn’t happen here” was a childish strategy doom to backfire.

To be extremely clear to those who still believe this will all blow over, wake up. I’m not saying Trump will send Bernie Sanders supporters (or anyone else) to gas chambers. However, I am saying that once the swastika snowball crests the top of the hill and builds momentum under it’s own weight, there’s no telling when it will stop.

It is happening here. And it is happening now. To counteract it, we need a movement that understands fascists don’t gain power by building prison camps, but by convincing citizens that some people belong in those camps. Only those who understand what Trump is attempting and is willing to respond accordingly, challenging the encroachment of any civil liberty, even upon those they dislike, will be able to properly resist him. That challenge may be vocal, or it might be physical. While different scenarios call for different responses, the important thing is that there is a response to any and all transgressions.

So, when They Come for their First victim, respond: speak up, organize, mobilize. Otherwise, there’s no telling where this path will lead.

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In Solidarity — Joe

Further Reading

How Trump Will Use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798

1. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists

2. https://hmd.org.uk/resource/pastor-martin-niemoller-hmd-2021/

3. https://www.thefire.org/news/trump-administrations-reasons-detaining-mahmoud-khalil-threaten-free-speech

4. https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep344/usrep344590/usrep344590.pdf

5. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/rubio-says-el-salvador-offers-to-accept-u-s-deportees-of-any-nationality-including-violent-american-criminals

6. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript