First, they came for the immigrants, and I didn’t speak up—because I was the grandson of a migrant worker, living in constant fear of what might happen if I dared to voice any resistance.
Then, they came for the Muslims, and I looked away—because I was a Christian hypocrite, more concerned about my reputation than confronting the rising tide of injustice.
Next, they came for the rest of the minorities, and I did nothing—believing myself too white, too assimilated, to be affected, stubbornly ignoring the warning signs that oppression was spreading like wildfire.
Finally, they came for me—by then, it was too late. The voices of democratic sympathizers had been silenced, the walls had closed in, and the authoritarians had taken over. I realized with dread that complacency had allowed this nightmare to unfold—and that, in the end, it cost us everything.
Let this be a warning: silence is not neutrality. It opens the door and allows tyranny to walk in. If we do not speak now, when will we? If we do not stand up, who will? The cost of inaction is our very soul—our future, our freedom, our humanity. We must wake up before the shadows consume us all.
Edited by: ElRoyPoet, 2026 (See Martin Niemöller’s quote below)
“Since President Donald Trump took office in 2025, ICE has more than doubled in size. DHS claims the agency now has 22,000 officers and agents stationed around the country and is still in the process of hiring more. The agency received nearly $80 billion in funding as part of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, giving it virtually unlimited resources to combat what the administration has consistently portrayed as an “invasion.” With new employees comes a desperate need for office space, and the possibility of deployment to new areas of operation.” Excerpt from: ICE Is Expanding Across the US at Breakneck Speed. Here’s Where It’s Going Next
“We’re being sold a story that mass arrests are what’s going to resolve our immigration issues, when in fact it’s comprehensive immigration reforms.” […] Under the next Trump administration, Hernandez expects to see echoes of Operation Wetback play out in a modern context. “I would expect to see roadblocks and a stop-and-frisk operation around immigration control, especially in the 100-mile zone” near the southern border, she said.”I expect racial profiling to be rampant. Back in ’54 it targeted Mexican immigrants, at this point I think it’s pretty clear that Black and Muslim migrants, in addition to Latinx migrants will be targeted.” Excerpt from: ‘Operation Wetback’: What Happened Last Time US Conducted Mass Deportations
“When the Supreme Court recently allowed immigration agents in the Los Angeles area to take race into consideration during sweeps, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that citizens shouldn’t be concerned. “If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States,” Kavanaugh wrote, “they promptly let the individual go.” But that is far from the reality many citizens have experienced. Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents. They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched.” Excerpt from: We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents.
“I think that the Trump Administration’s reaction, which has been to set up quotas, or radically ramp up going after noncriminal illegal immigrants—by which I mean people who have not committed an additional crime other than crossing the border illegally—is a political mistake, and has been redounding not to the benefit of the Trump Administration. There are better ways to do it […] I think the idea that ICE agents are state-sponsored terrorism […] When people suggest that ICE is Gestapo, when people are likening this to the Holocaust, I think it’s a massive […] not only a mistake, but—I said that that’s not true and I think that’s wrong.” Excerpt from: Ben Shapiro Is Waging Battle Inside the MAGA Movement
Right-wing media have relentlessly pushed the false claim that ICE is going after the “worst of the worst” In reality, data shows that “more than 60 percent of the people detained in at-large arrests since June did not have criminal convictions or pending charges”
“Federal agents raided Home Depot parking lots where day laborers waited for work, made traffic stops based on race and appearance, and smashed car windows when individuals refused to open their doors. In cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, masked, armed agents waited to arrest migrants, sometimes violently, as they left immigration hearings. It didn’t seem to matter if an individual had a pending asylum case, a U.S.-born dependent, or no criminal record. Once migrants are taken to ICE detention centers, where conditions have been described as inhumane by immigrant-advocacy groups, it can be months before they appear in court; all the while, they are pressured to sign documents authorizing their own deportation.” Excerpt from: A Mexican Couple in California Plans to Self-Deport—and Leave Their Kids Behind
How Trump’s Deportation Campaign Is Reshaping Small Town America
Who exactly is ICE trying to recruit?
Former ICE Agents Speak Out on Why They Quit
The Trump administration’s next target: naturalized US citizens
Inside ICE Detention: Stripped, Shackled, Starved
Worst Case Scenario: Sooner or later everybody ends up fighting the same battles. What’s really going on in the minds of the patriots, evangelicals and republicans is that they’re hoping that if they keep the MAGA movement going, they’ll eventually be able to eradicate the socialist democrats, black lives matter marxist, the minorities, immigrants, refugees and deviants who keep gaming government social programs, because the fear in their hearts has triggered hate mongering for whomever trump frames as unpatriotic. How will they do that? Extradition, segregation, re-education, there are too many citizens in prison, already, it’s impossible! Or are they hoping, for America to become a fascist nation by inciting the alt-right mob to start a campaign of domestic terrorism? But there’s a drawback, to this diabolical plan, because when martial law kicks in the door, you can kiss all your constitutional protections goodbye. I repeat, if you or the police state mess up, there’s no civil rights defense!
For a government, to facilitate the detainment of undesirable groups, it has to suspend the constitutional protections of the infected community. But here’s the danger with this scenario, can you trust them to lift martial law, after they’ve completed the round-up, or will they use the pretense, that it’s not safe, yet? History tells us that after the citizens surrender their civil rights, chances are they ain’t getting them back.
“We (the founding fathers of our nation) hold these truths to be self-evident (these truths are universal and non-debatable), that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights (these rights are equal for everyone, because they have value in our Creator’s Eyes), that among these are Life (you have the right to live), Liberty (you have the right to freedom) and the pursuit of Happiness (you have the right to choose for yourself).
Even though we don’t all agree with each other about the Bible. The Declaration of Independence is broader than that and acknowledges that there is an expected gratitude and accountability to God. However, America needs to be warned: Since the right to attain life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is tied-in to our Creator, we can’t remove God from the equation. Otherwise, we won’t have a basis for our right to expect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in our children’s future!” Excerpt from A New Look at America’s Christian Heritage
“Being good is hard if you live under an authoritarian regime… Dictatorships elevate the nation and the leader as ultimate ends, while mere individuals have no inherent worth outside of their service to the state […] Damir Marusic, an Atlantic Council senior fellow, recently wrote, ‘Putin is a wholly authentic Russian phenomenon, and the imperialist policy he’s pursuing in Ukraine is too.’ This is right, but only up to a point. We simply don’t know what individual Russians would choose, want—or become—if they had been socialized in a free, open democracy, rather than a dictatorship where fear is the air one breathes. Like everyone else, they are products of their environment. Authoritarianism corrupts society. Because punishment and reward are made into arbitrary instruments of the state, citizens have little incentive to pool resources, cooperate, or trust others. Survival is paramount, and survival requires putting one’s own interests above everything else, including traditional morality. In such a context, as the historian Timothy Snyder puts it, ‘life is nasty, brutish, and short; the pleasure of life is that it can be made nastier, more brutish, and shorter for others.’ This is the zero-sum mindset that transforms cruelty into virtue.
In short, authoritarianism twists the soul and distorts natural moral intuitions. In so doing, it renders its citizens—or, more precisely, its subjects—less morally culpable. To be fully morally culpable is to be free to choose between right and wrong. But that choice becomes much more difficult under conditions of dictatorship. Not everyone can be courageous and sacrifice life and livelihood to do the right thing.” Excerpt from Why the Russian People Go Along With Putin’s War
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán cut right to the chase. He said that Hungary had been “completely healed” of anything smacking of liberalism, and he was crystal clear about how to do it: Control the media. In Hungary, as Szelenyi explained in her TNR essay, this was accomplished first through the takeover of the state media and second through generous loans from the state bank to allow Orbán’s cronies to buy up most of the private media. “Have your own media,” Orbán told the conference. “It’s the only way to point out the insanity of the progressive left.” Oh, and this: “We have to take back the institutions in Washington and Brussels. We must find allies in one another and coordinate the movements of our troops.”
The military metaphor is telling, and overall, they couldn’t have been more straightforward with us. The American right, from Trump to CPAC Jefe Matt Schlapp on down the line, celebrates and seeks to emulate a racist, neofascist anti-democracy. They want to turn the United States into Hungary.
And swing voters, that small percentage of people in the middle who decide elections, live in their bubble, committed to the notions that they’re all corrupt anyway and that the Democrats are just as extreme to the left as Republicans are to the right. They’re concerned about inflation and baby formula, as well they should be, but they need to wake up and think about all this before it’s too late.
By the time those formula-starved babies are playing Little League, they’ll be living in what’s effectively a one-party state where contraception is illegal. Where gay couples have to travel to certain states to marry—if they’re allowed to marry at all. Where the local library won’t stock books on slavery. Where the rich are paying taxes at a lower rate than middle-class people and the federal government has no money (and perhaps, given the Supreme Court we have, no legal authority) to enforce its laws. And where the right-wing, anti-democracy media has more power than the mainstream media (I think we already live in that country). And where election results can be overturned if they came out “wrong.” Excerpt from American Conservatism Just Threw a Party for Hungarian Fascism
Authoritarian’s Creed: “In a perfect world, I would rule the world. But since most people don’t want to surrender their free will to the state, my demon’s will have to force the issue.” By: Lucifer
“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. The object of power is power.” By: George Orwell (Excerpts from “1984”)
“The reason the MAGA republicans keep repeating the big lie, even though they know that the elections weren’t stolen, is because it’s a big joke to them—they do it to ‘own the libs‘ (mock the democrat voters who still believe in democracy). Ironically Trump has ignited their ‘disgust for democracy’ reflex with his constant barrage of grievance rhetoric bombs.” By: B. Bondman
“Though liberty is established by law, we must be vigilant, for liberty to enslave us is always present under that same liberty. Our Constitution speaks of the ‘general welfare of the people’. Under that phrase all sorts of excesses can be employed by [authoritarian] tyrants — to make us bondmen.” By: Marcus Tullius Cicero
“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” By: Ayn Rand
“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” By: George Washington (Farewell Address, September 17, 1796)
“The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.” By: Mahatma Gandhi
“Ignorance breeds fear. We fear those things we don’t understand. If we don’t put a lid on that fear and keep that fear in check, that fear in turn will breed hatred because we hate those things that frighten us. “If we don’t keep that hatred in check, that hatred in turn will breed destruction.” By: Daryl Davis
“Anger and intolerance are the twin enemies of correct understanding.” By: Mahatma Gandhi
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” By: Benjamin Franklin
“If our democracy dies, the reason won’t be that Americans were too apathetic to save it; it will be that they voted it out of existence.” By: H. Scott Butler
“Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it.” By: Frank Herbert
“History has shown that fascist ideologies rarely learn the most crucial lesson: coexistence and collaboration. Instead of seeking common ground and understanding, they allow their propaganda to sow seeds of division and instability throughout the nation.”
“It does not matter how well the Bible, or the Constitution was written: if those aspirations are not animated by the spirit that dwells in your heart.” By: ElRoyPoet
“Faith in God becomes an afterthought, when your mind is preoccupied with its own self preservation.”
“I don’t write my post-apocalyptic stories, because that’s what I think our future will become. I write them, so that you’ll know what future to avoid.” By: Ray Bradbury
In order to explain why we have systemic racism and a culture of ethics violations within our institutions, we need to understand that all systems in government rely on people to do their jobs in good faith. All it takes is for one key player to cheat, and the system fails. No system is self-moderated, no matter how much we audit and try to regulate it; it is up to the civil servant(s) to do his job to the best of his abilities. All the systemic problems we find are to be blamed on the people in power who are acting slick—not on the system. Blaming the culture is unconstitutional; an individual(s) in that system who is unwilling to support it, is literally breaking his oath of office. This is why a democracy can’t survive without a free press—to force transparency of the government—so that if it is discovered that a corrupt public official(s) is gaming the system, it can be brought to the citizens’ attention, so that the bad actor(s) can be impeached by the checks and balances in place.
What History Has Taught Us: In the 1930s, a similar phenomenon unfolded in Germany, where a charismatic and manipulative leader named Adolf Hitler ascended to power by exploiting widespread fear, economic instability, and deep-seated divisions within German society. Through fiery speeches and propaganda, he promised to restore national pride, rebuild the economy, and restore Germany’s former greatness. However, beneath these fake promises lay a sinister agenda: to undermine democratic institutions, suppress dissent, and establish a brutal totalitarian regime. His rise was facilitated by the manipulation of public fears, scapegoating minority groups, and the normalization of violence.
Today, we see echoes of this pattern in our own political landscape. Our populist president has employed similar tactics, exploiting fears, division, and anxieties to galvanize support and consolidate power. By stoking fears about immigrants, minorities, and liberals, he has fostered an environment where intolerance and suspicion flourish.
The consequences of such incendiary rhetoric have been devastating. Immigrant communities are living in constant fear, feeling targeted and vulnerable. Many have gone into panic mode, as they are hunted down by ICE—faced with harassment, deportation, and violence. The situation has rapidly spiraled out of control, undermining the rule of law and enabling authoritarian tendencies to take hold. The erosion of democratic norms and the rise of tyranny threaten to dismantle the foundations of our society.
This disturbing development is eerily reminiscent of Kristallnacht, the infamous wave of violent anti-Semitic pogroms that swept through Germany in 1938. During Kristallnacht, synagogues were burned, Jewish businesses were destroyed, and thousands of Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. It marked a horrifying turning point—the beginning of the systematic persecution and extermination of Jewish communities in Europe. The parallels are unsettling, as history warns us that unchecked hatred and authoritarian rhetoric can lead to devastating consequences, erasing centuries of cultural diversity and human dignity.
History has taught us that vigilance, resistance, and a commitment to democratic principles are essential to prevent history from repeating itself. We must learn from the past, recognize the signs of rising tyranny, and stand firm against rhetoric that promotes division and hatred.
“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 for me.” By: Martin Niemöller
Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) was a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany. In the 1920s and early 1930s, he sympathized with many Nazi ideas and supported radically right-wing political movements. But after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Niemöller became an outspoken critic of Hitler’s interference in the Protestant Church. He spent the last eight years of Nazi rule, from 1937 to 1945, in Nazi prisons and concentration camps. Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for his postwar statement: The quotation expresses Niemöller’s belief that Germans had been complicit through their silence in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people. He felt this was especially true of the leaders of the Protestant churches, which were made up of Lutheran, Reformed, and United traditions.
This Martin Niemöller quote originated after the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. After the war, Niemöller was well-known for his opposition to the Nazi regime and as a former victim of Nazi persecution. In 1946, he traveled on a lecture tour in the western zones of Allied-occupied Germany. In his lectures, Niemöller publicly confessed his own inaction and indifference to the fate of many of the Nazis’ victims. He used phrases such as “I did not speak out…” or “we preferred to keep quiet.” He explained that in the first years of the Nazi regime he had remained silent as the Nazis persecuted other Germans, especially members of leftist political movements with whom he disagreed.
Niemöller considered his fellow Germans as the primary audience for his confession. In his lectures, he lamented that individual Germans failed to accept responsibility for Nazism, German atrocities in German-occupied countries, and the Holocaust. According to him, individual Germans were passing the blame onto their neighbors, superiors, or Nazi organizations like the Gestapo. Through his confession, he wanted to show Germans how to accept personal responsibility for complicity in the Nazi regime.
elroypoet.blog 