Then They Came for Me

By Tommy Hough

With the naked display of state-sponsored fascism on the streets of Portland as the Department of Homeland Security wages a terror campaign against the citizens of an American city, and the threatened deployment of federal paramilitaries throughout the U.S. by President Trump and the unprecedented step it brings toward police state authoritarianism, consider Martin Niemöller's cautionary poem "First They Came," written in 1946 following the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II.

A theologian, pastor, and opponent of the Nazi regime, Niemöller led an influential Lutheran congregation in the Berlin suburbs at the time the Nazis came to power, and wrote his poem about the cowardice of German intellectuals and his fellow clergymen during the rise of the Third Reich, and the regime's incremental undoing of the rule of law, especially after the violence and summary executions of the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, and the implementation of the racist Nuremberg Laws in 1935, which robbed German Jews of all aspects of citizenship and civil rights. We know what followed.

Niemöller was first arrested by the Nazi regime in 1937, and was a tried by a "special," i.e. kangaroo court for crimes against the Reich. While the court eventually released him due to the number of months he'd already been in jail, Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess had him seized by the Gestapo immediately afterwards, and he was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and later Dachau concentration camps until the end of the war in 1945.

Since Niemöller wasn't formally arrested, as he had been before, there was no recourse to his seizure. There was no due process either, despite the fact Niemöller was a lawful citizen. He was simply snatched away extrajudicially and detained, without a trace. The Nazis called this "night and fog."

After a trial run on the streets of San Diego in June, that exact same behavior is now being applied by federal paramilitaries in Portland, and the administration freely admits this model will soon be applied in other cities.

This administration is taking hostages with little legal recourse, and making examples of "disloyal," almost entirely Democratic-run cities. In this manner, the administration may bargain their way into concessions for the November election in a protracted and deliberately exhausting legal procedure. In Trump's mind, this is the art of the deal.

We are facing our greatest constitutional crisis since the Civil War, which ended 155 years ago in 1865, but never really ended. It takes demagogues like Trump to follow the examples of despotic regimes and his own inner toxicity to use our nation's faultlines and divisions as a means of enhancing his power, rather than working to bring our nation together the way a normal, responsible human would be inclined to do.

But should Trump lose the November election, or otherwise be removed from power, he's well aware he will no longer be protected by a cloak of presidential power. He, his family, and many of his subordinates will deservedly face trial and imprisonment on multiple fronts and charges. And given Trump's own words and the extraordinary machinations of state power already being given free rein, set against the backdrop of the deadliest pandemic our nation has faced in 100 years, there is no reason to expect the president won't use every despotic means available to remain in power, even as every authoritarian move he makes belies his own impotence and lack of real power.

So where are the Jade Helm conspiracy theorists now? Where are those who claim wearing a face mask is "tyranny?" Pay attention to those remaining silent at this moment of actual tyranny.

If you're unable to stand against the authoritarian tide being incited by a decadent executive branch, which isn't even pretending to take "incremental" steps anymore in dismantling 244 years of our democratic traditions as it attacks non-violent protesters, you may bear a resemblance to the narrator of "First They Came."

Because someday, perhaps sooner than you think, "they" may come for you, in the midst of night and fog. And who will stand for you then?

The original version of Niemöller's "First They Came" is:

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

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

Actor Rafael Casal wrote an updated version of the poem for the Trump era last year:

First they came for the immigrants
And I did not speak out
Because I was not an immigrant

Then they came for the children of immigrants
And I did not speak out
Because I am not a child of an immigrant

Then they came for the brown and black
And I did not speak out
Because I am neither brown nor black

Then they came for the politicians
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a politician

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak for me.​

The headstone of German theologian and pastor Martin Niemöller in Wersen, North Rhine-Westphalia.