First They Came for the Socialists…Why?
In the famous poem by Martin Niemöller, the Nazis come for the socialists, the unionists, and then the Jews, and finally for the speaker (who is presumably not a socialist, unionist, or Jew). Niemöller’s poem refers to the Nazi’s political violence which culminated in the mass murder of the Holocaust, and today is used by many Holocaust museums and memorials and referenced by pundits and commentators. Most recently, a New York Times Op-Ed by Charles Blow used the piece as a framing device to discuss Trump’s announcement that the military would not longer accept trans service members. While Blow should be commended for his defense of LGBTQ rights (he himself has recently come out as bisexual), his piece and the commentary surrounding it have serious flaws.
If Blow and others are trying to suggest that Trump “first” came for trans service members, they are grossly mistaken — Trump and his allies first came for Muslims and Latinos, especially undocumented immigrants. While this is probably not their intention, it’s telling that Blow’s piece completely ignores Muslims and undocumented immigrants. Neither phrase appears in the piece at all. Considering that anti-Islamic rhetoric and promises to build a wall on the border and deport millions of people are effectively the only consistent parts of Trump’s platform, not including them is more than a mistake, it’s an error that shows a lack of understanding of Trump’s nationalism.
Second, Blow and others fail to understand what the poem they are referencing is actually about. So, why did the Nazi’s come for the socialists first?
Niemöller knew the answer, which would have been obvious to anyone else living in the Nazi regime or anywhere else at the time. The Nazis come first for the socialists and then for the trade unionists because they were some of their largest and most powerful opponents. These political, partisan enemies were some of the first targets of the Nazi’s systemic violence, and only after they were eliminated could the Nazis enact the rest of their agenda.

Niemöller’s poem isn’t just about bad people who do bad things and hurt others, but about a strategy of control, oppression, and extermination pursued by a committed political movement — fascism.
Blow and others don’t understand this, and use Niemöller’s piece to set off a list of successful movements that rose in opposition to political oppression. But again, this is a real mistake. We can’t let ourselves be reassured that oppression naturally generates successful opposition. The political opposition to the Pinochet and Videla regimes in Chile and Argentina were so thoroughly defeated that it took decades for perpetrators of right wing violence to see justice. Domestic opposition to the Nazi government was crushed. Jim Crow, one of Blow’s own examples of a catalyst for progressive opposition, lasted for nearly one hundred years and resulted in untold deaths, rapes, wrongful convictions, and other heinous crimes. These movements didn’t appear because of their oppressors, but in spite of them, and didn’t disappear because of their successes but because of the violence of the right.

Sometimes it’s foolish and wrong to look for the silver lining. Sometimes, we just lose.
Niemöller has one more lesson to teach us. The Nazis’ violence wasn’t random, or stupid, but strategic. They came for their political opponents first, and those who they saw as their civilizational opponents (Jews, Slavs, Roma) second. As it stands, Trump and the GOP have no political enemies powerful enough to suppress. The Democrats have no leverage in the federal government, and little in any state. There is no mass mobilization threatening the everyday function of society, no organization large enough to mount anything that deserves the name “resistance.” Trump and his allies have no need to silence any opposition to achieve their goals — and we can’t expect the resistance to happen to us because it would be convenient or because it fits our political narrative. Opposition is dangerous, it’s difficult, and sometimes deadly. Our mission must be to build that opposition despite the danger, not to expect it to emerge from Trump’s agenda but to become something he and his allies have to contend with if they want to come for anyone at all.
