So What Can We Do?

 So, let us suppose that I am right, that the current ICE reign of terror will lead to labor shortages that are unsustainable and therefore won't be sustained.  Sooner or later it will have to end, the question being when and how.  

My guess was that it will end in about 3-4 months, with some sort of system of allowing employers being allowed to vouch for employees, creating an extremely exploitive system that allows employers to keep their work force in line with the threat of deportation.  ICE would have to respect such a certification and therefore be forced to relent somewhat in its lawlessness, but would still have open season on anyone with out such a certification, including immigrants with various other kinds of legal protection.  On the plus side, the arrest quota -- and with it, Stephen Miller -- would have to go.

But that is purely guesswork on my part.  Even assuming the current reign of terror comes to an end well short of the mass deportations Trump has promised, it might end sooner or it might end later.  It might end on better terms, or it might end on worse.  Political pressure will be a major factor.  So far, Trump is facing a lot of political pressure, both from the hardcore MAGA who will accept nothing short of complete ethnic cleansing, and from financial interests who want it to end.  

What can we do?  My own view, from 30,000 feet up, is that we should think of this as a replay of the Civil Rights Movement -- a fight for public opinion and moral authority.  Whatever builds our moral authority helps to sway public opinion.  And we need to focus, not just on the overall public, but on those specific parts of the public that might have Trump's ear.

What do I suggest?  Here are my ignorant suggestions, from someone who has not idea how to achieve any of this.

Flood social  media with images of ICE outrages.  I realize the difficulty here is that we cannot tell in advance when and where ICE will strike.  On the other hand, I understand there are networks that watch ICE and tracking apps.  There should be ways to move rapid response teams.  Also, reach out to social media influencers and hubs.  If Joe Rogan can turn against Trump on this, maybe others can, too.

Send Congress to investigate detention centers.  ICE is demanding 72 hours notice to allow them to manage appearances.  But if inspections are frequent enough, it will have to be constantly managing appearances and maybe have to do more than appear.  Obviously, regular folks can't do this, but we can urge our Democrats in Congress to do it.

Deploy white people.  There are two advantages here.  White people are much less likely to be ICE targets and therefore are safer.  White people are also at an emotional remove from the issue and therefore less likely to get violent or abusive or do something else that hurts our moral authority.  When Black Lives Matter protests were breaking into riots, it occurred to me the danger might be reduced if you had a Black Woman's March, carrying signs saying "Marching for our men" or a Black Senior's March, carrying signs saying, "Marching for our sons and grandsons."  Downtown LA is a flashpoint, dangerous for Latinos and the scene of riots.  Why not send white people from suburbs with signs saying "Marching for our neighbors."

The Virgin of Guadalupe

Have a song and a symbol.  What song?  Well, not being an immigrant myself, it is not for me to say, but I can give some characteristics.  Make it something catchy and easily learned that becomes the signature tune of the movement.  (The Civil Rights Movement had "We Shall Overcome.")  Make it something that conveys moral authority.  In the case of immigration, that means assuring people of your allegiance.  For that reason, songs in Spanish, with a Mexican beat, are dangerous, just as the Mexican flag is dangerous.  Make it something that comes from the heart.  I get that these two things may be in tension -- a song vowing allegiance to the US may come across as insincere, especially given how the US is behaving now.  I am inclined to think the best bet is some sort of song celebrating the dignity of labor, to stress the point that immigrants are hard workers who contribute to society, and not the moocher their enemies say.  As for symbols, protestors in 2006 wore white to show their peaceful intent.  That sounds good.  I also heard the suggestion of using the Virgin of Guadalupe instead of the Mexican flag as a symbol of ethnic pride.  That sounds good, too.

For white supporters -- carry the US flag and pictures of the Statue of Liberty.  An upside down flag and Lady Liberty covering her face in shame work, too.  Carry posters with the slogan, "No PERSON shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law," Fifth Amendment. And "But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt," Leviticus 19:34.  Since patriotic songs that a liberal can sing from the heart, "This land is your land," or Neil Diamond "Coming to America," or Disney, "It's a Small World."

Stephen Miller

Make Stephen Miller our hate sink.  Making Elon Musk the target of anger worked for DOGE.  Immigration offers three possible targets -- Kristi Noem, Tom Homan, and Stephen Miller.  But it is best to focus everything on just one, and to me the choice is obvious.  ICE Barbie is just a (purportedly) pretty face with nothing behind it.  Tom Homan talks out of both sides of his mouth -- saying in one breath that we are only going after criminals, the worst of the worst, and when confronted with someone completely harmless, says that unauthorized border crossing is a crime, after all.  In other words, he is a PR flack.  He knows how to tack with the wind.  Stephen Miller is the evil genius behind all of this, the one who set the impossible quotas in the first place and, rumor has it, the one running the entire Administration.  And he has none of Trump's or even Musk's charm.  If it is possible for charisma to be negative, he has negative charisma. The mere sight of Steven Miller is enough to make most people want to wash very thoroughly.  

Avoid causing violence or disruption.  Yes, I know people's anger is justified, but it plays badly with public opinion.  My advice -- protest about a block away from federal facilities -- close enough to be seen and heard, but not close enough to start a fight.   Have peace keepers present and isolate any trouble makers.  I have no objection to civil disobedience -- seeking to physically block ICE and so forth, but this should be limited to people who are trained in civil disobedience and not responding to provocations.  If you are not trained, leave the civil disobedience to people who are.

Create a pipeline for ICE officers who want to quit.  At least some ICE officers are reported to be unhappy.  To my mind, ICE breaking apart is the best case scenario, though not a very likely one.  Still, it can't be easy to leave.  Half the people will hate you for having belonged to ICE and the other half will hate you for leaving.  Anyone who wants to be a hero and come forward should be welcome.  But presumably most will want to stay anonymous and get on with their lives with as little fuss as possible.  We should facilitate that.

Above all, seek out allies and minimize enemies.  The broader the coalition, the better the chance for success.  I realize also, the broader the coalition, the greater the chance of it breaking  up once it achieves its narrow goal, ending the current reign of terror, as people disagree on what is to follow.  But that is a different problem for a different day.  Ending the reign of terror comes first.  Who are our allies?

Immigrants and immigration activists.  Obviously.

Anti-Trump activists.  Ditto.

The Catholic Church.  Latinos are no longer as uniformly Catholic as was once the case, but the transnational nature of the Catholic Church makes this type of nationalism anathema to it.  Many  Catholic clergy have come out against the mass deportation regime.

Evangelical megachurches.  Yes, really.  Many of these have large numbers of immigrants in their membership who they will want to protect.  They might want a carveout to allow churches, as well as employers, to vouch for immigrants.  If we can make an alliance here, it is one that Trump will listen to.

Veterans.  Veterans have two roles here.  One is that many are troubled the Trump mobilizing the National Guard in Los Angeles.  Active duty personnel are strictly limited in what they can say.*  Veteran voices can speak up instead.  The other important role is specifically Afghan War veterans arguing for Afghans who put their lives on the line for us and now face being turned over to the Taliban to be tortured and killed.  Vietnam veterans as well -- we admitted Vietnamese who put their lives on the line for us, and they assimilated well.  Come to think of it, Vietnamese Americans may have something to say here also.

Animal lovers.  And now it appears that pets are being abandoned as their owners are arrest.  If nothing else reaches the heartstrings, this should.

Texas and Florida Republicans.  Both states have large Hispanic/Latino populations who vote Republican, but for how much longer?  At least some polls have shown in under water in both states.  And, in fact, a Florida Republican has introduced the Dignity Act, that would give unauthorized immigrants a pathway to legal status.  Nine other Republicans have endorsed the bill as well.

Police.  Maybe not a comfortable alliance, but a useful one.  Most police prefer to focus on street crime and not waste resources on people whose sole offense is unauthorized border crossing, and who pose no threat to public safety.  Besides, when ordinary police start asking immigration questions, non-citizen crime victims are afraid to come forward.  And -- lest certain MAGA types see this as a good thing -- non-citizen witnesses who may help solve a crime may also fear to come forward.  So yes, let us make this alliance even if it is not always comfortable.

Unions.  Many laborers being deported are union members.  If the Republicans want to make themselves into a working class party, unions should carry some weight with them.  And unions will have a strong interest in fighting for a non-exploitive arrangement, on behalf of working people of all ethnicities.

Employers.  This is the most controversial of all.  It means aligning ourselves with big money interests who we traditionally see as the enemy.  And big money interests are apt to seek a very exploitive arrangement.  But they are also the ones most likely to carry sway with Team Trump.  The stakes being what they are now, I don't believe we can afford to alienate any potential allies.

So those are my thoughts.  And I have no idea how to translate any of them into reality.

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*Tom Nichols has written about refusing an unlawful order and says that -- thus far -- what Trump has done falls well short of that.

ICE Compared to DOGE: How Does it End?

 

It didn't take me too long to recognize that Elon Musk's rampage through the federal government was not sustainable and had to come to an end, albeit with great damage.  The same applied to the worst of Trump's tariff's -- the markets cracked the whip, and he retreated to tariffs that were merely damaging, rather than ruinous.*

I would like to think that the same rule applies to mass deportations, that deporting so much of our labor force will become so ruinous that it just has to stop.  But at the same time, Team Trump has invested so many resources in mass deportation, and Republicans are so committed to it that it seems hard to imagine them pulling back.

The case for pessimism

The One Botched, Bungled Boondoggle increases the budget for border enforcement from $34 billion to $168 billion -- nearly a five-fold increase.  This is approximately the combined total of all local police budgets in the US.  It also seeks to hire another 10,000 ICE agents, up from the current 20,000 and as much as a 13-fold increase in the detention and surveillance budget.  Many of these facilities are already built, so there will not be much delay.  And detention and surveillance will be a strong interest group fighting any cuts.  Firing tens of thousands of unionized federal employees is not politically feasible (although DOGE has set an interesting precedent here).  ICE has tasted blood and will be extremely difficult to reign in.  And this seems to be broadly desired by Republicans across the board, being offered as a spoonful of sugar to sweeten the bitter medicine if Medicaid cuts.  The only Republican to have questioned the expansion is Rand Paul, whose only objection appears to be a desire for greater accountability for the expense.  And when Trump briefly relented for farms and hotels he quickly reversed, apparently in response to Republican outcry.

Opinion polls are also revealing.  It appears that Americans believe that ICE has gone too far by 54% to 44%. But 80% of Republicans approve, with 31% even saying that ICE has not gone far enough.  So long as 80% of Republicans support ICE brutality, it will be very hard for Republicans to go against it.

In short, Republicans in general and Trump in particular have made mass deportations their signature policy, created a huge bloc of interests in mass deportations, have a rabid base, and will have great difficulty backing down.

The case or optimism

At the same time, sooner or later the economic consequences of deportations on such a scale will make themselves known.  At the same time, immigrants make up about 19% of the US labor force.  Yes, granted, many of them have legal status, but neither ICE nor hardcore Republicans seem to care.  Including undocumented only, Republicans are proposing to deport nearly a third of the workforce in construction, nearly half our workforce in agriculture, nearly a third of home health workers, and perhaps one out of four or five residential care workers.  Deporting so much of our workforce is going to be seriously disruptive and lead to growing pushback.  Donald Trump is showing signs of wavering, proposing exemptions for workers in agriculture and hospitality, though so far not following through.  Immigrant-heavy industries are beginning to experience labor shortages, especially in agriculture.

And now we are getting reports that even ICE is getting tired of this.  At least some ICE officers disapprove of their agency's lawlessness, although I think it is obvious that others love it.  But it does seem plausible that even agents who like the work are getting tired of starting at 4:00 a.m. and working weekends.  And even pushing so hard, ICE is still falling well short of Stephen Miller's goal of 3,000 arrests a day -- an average of 1,200 per day and only two days with 2,000.  The latest budget seeks to expand ICE's workforce by half -- from 20,000 to 30,000.  It seeks to more than double detainee capacity -- from 41,000 to 100,000.  Even with such an expansion, Miller's quota seems like a stretch. At the same time, this has not (thus far) led to widespread resignations or internal protests, and in the absence of such a response, discontent is not much use.  But it does suggests that the ICE rank and file might be more open to being reigned in than one might expect -- so long as the pressure from above relents.

What to Expect

Well, Elon Musk got kicked out when the rest of Trump's cabinet revolted.  All of them, no matter how rightwing, had actual work to get done and were tired of the disruptions.  Is there a chance of that happening here?  Other departments are being asked to divert more and more resources to deportations.  Some of them must be tired of being diverted from their normal missions.  A lot of employers, many of the Republicans, are getting frustrated with labor shortage.  And even Homeland Security is offering a sweetener to its threats -- the opportunity for anyone who self-deports to apply for readmission.  Tr

Sooner or later -- my guess is about 3-4 months, but that is purely a guess -- labor shortages will get so bad that the Team Trump will see no choice but to relent, at least in agriculture.  And if Trump relents in agriculture, how long can it be before other industries want in as well?  He has already proposed an exception for hospitality.  Construction and healthcare will also want in.  And no doubt others.  Trump has proposed to allow employers to "vouch" for their workforce to protect them from deportation.**  A few points are in order here.  

One is that this sounds terribly exploitive.  It makes it essentially impossible for a laborer to change jobs without a sponsor's agreement, and it allows employers to hold the threat of deportation over anyone they consider out of line.

At the same time, not all employers are purely exploitive.  Many will no doubt be willing to vouch for an employee purely as a protective matter.  In fact, I would expect that even if right wingers can eventually be brought around to such a system, they will be absolutely paranoid about fake certifications.

And finally, this will require at least some relenting in ICE's reign of terror.  An end to workplace raids at farms, obviously.  But ending workplace raids will be of limited value of employees can be arrested any time going to and from work, buying groceries, picking up children from school, attending church, etc.  Granted, ICE can continue random sweeps of these place.  But it will at least have to give people the opportunity to present proof of protection by an employer, and will have to respect such a certification.  That might even mean ending outrageous quotas in favor of a more targeted system.  And that, in turn, might require getting rid of Stephen Miller.

Hey, I can dream.

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*And now he is once again threatening ruinous -- starting August 1.  We will see how long that lasts.

**He raised the issue in agriculture only, but one can easily imagine a similar system in other industries.

A Few Mildly Encouraging Things About OBBB

 

Clearly, the One Bad, Bonkers Bill can't be considered good by any definition of the term.  But there are some things about it that could be worse.  Horrible though the policy is, and the rushed execution, there are a few things that might seem reassuring.

Consider:

The original version did not set Medicaid cuts to begin until 2029.  This means that Republicans anticipated that there would be a free and fair election in 2028 that a Democrat might win.  It might not be too much of a stretch to say they welcomed a Democrat winning so they could escape the blame.

Current Medicaid cuts take effect after the 2026 election.  That means that Republicans expect a free and fair 2026 election, or at least that they might lose their seats for cutting people's benefits.

Republican Senators deferred to the Senate Parliamentarian.  When she stripped out provisions as violating the filibuster rule, they accepted her judgment and refused calls to fire her.  The one exception was that they treated the existing revenue as baseline, which shocked Washington watchers, but seems to me a non-crazy way of doing things.*  The means Republican Senators think there could be a future government with Democrats controlling the White House and the House and at least 50 Senate seats and so they want to protect the filibuster.

Donald Trump threatened Thom Tillis with a primary challenge if he opposed the bill.  Tillis decided not to seek re-election.  Threatening one's political opponents with a primary challenge is, of course, completely legal and well within accepted norms of American politics.  Tillis, having decided not to run again, now feels free to speak freely.  Neither Thomas Massie nor Rand Paul show any fear of Donald Trump either.  Given rumors that Trump was keeping his caucus in line, not just with threats of primary challenges, but with physical threats by violent supporters, this is reassuringly normal.

Speaking of the Senate Parliamentarian, she removed a provision that would have prevented courts from enjoining government actions.  She also removed a provision limiting judges ability to hold defiant officials in contempt.  I will admit I never considered that provision quite as dangerous, since it is not clear to me that contempt proceedings have played any significant role in whether officials obey court orders, but it is nice to have.

The ban on artificial intelligence regulation was also removed, and by a 99-1 vote, no less!

A provision allowing the IRS to unilaterally declare any non-profit a supporter of terrorism and shut it down was rejected.  I don't know for sure, but it was possible the fear that a Democrat might be President some day have have this power may have played a part.

A proposal to increase taxes on charitable foundations was also rejected.  Republicans have insisted for a long time that government is too powerful and that everyone is too dependent on government money.  Given the rampage Trump has been on, many of his opponents have begun to agree.  The original House version sought to make it harder for even private charity to step in where government stepped out.  The Senate removed this provision.

In generally, the impact of the provisions will grow over time.  This will give time for public outcry to build and the most damaging provisions to be reversed.

In short, what ultimately passed is a horribly bad set of policies.  But at least the parts of it that threatened democracy were taken out.  Except for the very most dangerous one.  The expansion of ICE.

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*Aside from the craziness of the entire procedure of requiring a 60-vote super-majority and treating a simple majority as a radical action.

Another Way of Looking At It: Immigration as the New Civil Rights Movement

Alternately, if Niemoller comparisons are too scary, let me offer a homegrown point of comparison -- the Civil Rights Movement.

Back when the fight of the day was gay marriage, I read someone commenting that the problem with today's left is that they are desperately looking for a new Civil Rights Movement -- a heroic struggle against oppression, and keep turning what are really mundane disputes of policy into the new Civil Rights.

Gay marriage is one such example.  Certainly, one can be in favor of it and still acknowledge that it is going a bit far to call it the defining moral issue of our day, rather than a relatively mundane policy dispute.  And the reason it really was dangerous to treat gay marriage as the defining moral issue of the day is that advocates had an unfortunate tendency to treat one's stance on the issue as the sole defining question of who was and was not a good person, and opposition as placing people wholly outside the bounds of reasonable discourse.  That seems a bid harsh for what was, after all, quite a radical redefinition of the meaning of marriage.  And it disallowed intermediate positions, such as favoring gay marriage while recognizing that people of good will could disagree, or favoring gay marriage but recognizing the rights of conscientious objectors.  And in the end, I actually think the Supreme Court reached a good compromise -- gay marriage is the law of the land, but on one should be required to participate in and "expressive" manner.  The controversy has largely subsided.

The same goes for transgenderism.  Once disputes over gay marriage subsided, our side set out to make transgenderism the new Civil Rights Movement.  Again, sorry, but the issue of whether a handful of athletes have to play on the team of their natal sex, or what conditions (if any) should be placed on puberty blockers for minors fit well within the realm of normal policy disputes.

Plenty of other Trump actions fit in the same category.  Disputes of whether Congress should cut Medicaid or withdraw clean energy subsidies, or make budgetary rescissions, are policy dispute.  Some of these are really bad policies that will hurt a lot of innocent people, but they are not threats to our constitutional order.  The Trump tariffs are a threat to our constitutional order in the sense that they threaten the legislature's power of the purse, a provision in effect since the Middle Ages.  But if Congress were to pass such taxes, it would be a policy dispute -- bad policy, but nonetheless lawful.

Immigration is a different matter.  Masked men without uniforms are randomly snatching people off the streets and sending them off to unknown locations, deliberately hiding where they are to deny them a day in court.  People with legal status are having it stripped away without notice.  People who comply with immigration laws are being arrested at check-ins, arrested at court hearings, arrested at naturalization ceremonies.  Central to the viewpoint of not just the relevant Trump officials, but to MAGA in general is that non-citizens have no rights, that recognizing any rights in non-citizens somehow degrades the rights of citizens, and that while citizens do have rights, those rights do not include the right to suggest that non-citizens have any sort of rights, or to protect them.  Not only have ICE officials engaged in egregious violations of the rights of immigrants, but most infringements on the rights of citizens have also involved the issue of immigration.

Thus far -- and those words do a lot of heavy lifting these days, but thus far the Trump Administration has shown no disposition to criminalize the opposition -- except on immigration.  Thus far the only opposing politicians to have been arrested have been ones who got on the wrong side of ICE.  Thus far our independent media have remained independent and the Trump Administration had only succeeded in getting one journalist fired -- Terry Moran of ABC, for his comments about Stephen Miller, the mastermind behind the deportation regime.  Thus far the Administration has shown no tendency to crack down on protests -- except where immigration is concerned.  

Thus far there has been no widespread attempt to shut down opposing organizations by denying their tax-exempt status, possibly because safeguards in place make that extremely difficult.  One of the proposals in the latest budget monstrosity is one that was defeated before and would give the IRS unilateral authority to declare any non-profit to be a supporter of terrorists and not only strip it of its non-profit status, but seize its assets.  The organization would not be able to appeal the decision to the courts for 90 days, and in the meantime would be rendered powerless by the seizure of its assets.  If this outrage passes, I have no idea how far Team Trump will use it in attempting to shut down the opposition, but can anyone doubt that it will be immediately deployed against every organization the defends immigrant rights?

In short, immigration is where the greatest danger is, both at the mass and the elite level.  That is where we must take on the Administration and we must defeat it.  And I believe we can, though how long it will take and at what cost I cannot venture a guess.

Niemoller and Immigration

 There are people who have urged us to steer clear of immigration and stick to subjects where we can be more sure of public support, such as tariffs and Medicaid cutbacks.  Gavin Newsom initially dismissed the issue as a "distraction" from economic issues.  Matthew Yglesias has made similar arguments.

I am, in general, in favor of Democrats focusing on issues that play well with the public and steering clear of the sort of niche or boutique issues that just make Democrats look out of touch.  Tariffs and Medicaid cuts are examples of issues that Democrats should emphasize because they can count on pubic opinion backing them.

But there are some moral issues that admit no compromise.  Trump's current immigration policy is one such instance.  In deciding what is a mere policy dispute and what allows no compromise, I think it fair to apply the Niemoller test -- "First they came for . . . "  And yes, I absolutely believe that such analogies get thrown around a bit loosely, so maybe we should consider what Niemoller's actual background was.

Wikipedia level sketch:  Niemoller was a Lutheran pastor and a conservative.  He voted for the Nazis in 1924, 1928, and 1933, welcoming 1933 ascent to power.  He believed that Jews as a religious group deserved persecution, but also that a Jew who was baptized as a Christian was immediately freed of such a taint.  As such, he opposed discriminatory measures against baptized Jews and Nazi attempts to subordinate Protestant churches to Nazism.*  In 1934 he was one of the co-founders of the Confessing Church, established to resist the Nazis' interference in church matters and to protest the refusal to recognize Jews who converted to Christianity as true Christians.  He was arrested in 1937 and sent to Dachau in 1938.  

So, treating 1937 as "and then they came for me," how bad had things gotten by then?  I have written a little before about the early stages.  First they came for the Communists.  Hitler was named Chancellor on January 30, 1933.  Within days he took over the Prussian police, deputized the Brown Shirts, and authorized them to shoot Communists mobs on sight.  On February 27, the Reichstag burned down.  The cabinet issued an emergency decree banning the Communist Party and authorizing the arrest of political opponents and closing of opposition newspapers.  On March 5, new elections were held and Nazis did better than ever before.  The next day, Nazis forcibly seized state government buildings and arrested political opponents by the tens of thousands.  On March 23, the Reichstag handed Hitler emergency powers, effectively voting itself out of existence.

Dachau was opened on March 22, the day before the Reichstag handed over the keys to Hitler, as a makeshift prison in a munitions factory to house political opponents, who has been arrested in such numbers as to exceed the capacity of existing prisons.  There were already reports of torture and murder there by April, and even an attempt at prosecution (suppressed by the authorities).  

Then they came for the homosexuals. Niemoller did not, as far as I know, ever name gays as a target.  As a conservative Christian, he would have thoroughly disapproved of their lifestyle.  Homosexuality was illegal in Weimar, but the laws were not widely enforced.  It remained illegal in West Germany after the Nazis were defeated, so gays were not as quick to speak up as other persecuted groups.  The suppression of gay bars, clubs, and publications began at once, with the wide approval of conservatives, religious and secular.  Ordinary gays at first continued their lives as long as the kept a low profile.  This changed in mid-1934 with the execution of Ernst Roehm, the gay leader of the Storm Troopers.  An estimated 100,000 gay men were arrested and torture was routinely used to extort confessions.  Some were imprisoned for years and an estimated 5-6,000 were sent to concentration camps and had a death rate of 60%. The scale of the persecution strained police resources, but the pressure for arrests was so strong that  some police departments resorted to calling in entire classes of teenage boys and asking them about their sexual experiences.

Some versions of Niemoller do name Jehovah's Witnesses.  Because Jehovah's witnesses refused to serve in the miliary or Nazi organizations.  By mid-1933, their press was closed down, their publications burned, and their meetings banned.  Jehovah's Witnesses were fired from government jobs for refusing to take a loyalty oath.  By 1935 and 1936, Jehovah's Witnesses were having their cars and bicycles seized, being evicted from their homes, having their children taken, and being imprisoned.  Some 2,000 were sent to concentration camps.

Then they came for the Jews.  It began with discrimination, not violence.  The Reichstag handed Hitler absolute power on March 23, 1933.  In April, Jews and Communists were barred from government employment.  Civil service protections were stripped from anyone hired under the Weimar government. Jews were also barred from practicing law, and the national health service stopped paying Jewish doctors.  (Patients could still pay out of pocket).  Jewish students were limited to 1.5% of total enrollment -- their proportionate share of the population.  In July, 150,000 naturalized Jews were stripped of their citizenship and deported.  In September, Jew were barred from owning farmland (not that many did in the first place).  Jews were also barred from producing works of culture.  In 1935, the Nuremburg laws stripped Jews of their citizenship.  Jews were also barred from marriage or sex with Germans (existing marriages were allowed to stand), from employing German women under 45, and from flying the German flag.  

In 1938, things became significantly worse.  Jews were forbidden from practicing medicine even for private payment, from having gardens, from attending theaters, opera, or concerts, or from public schools.  Kristallnacht took place on November 9-10, 1938.  After a deported Jew assassinated a German diplomat in Paris, a "spontaneous" pogrom led by the secret police broke out -- mass vandalism and looting of Jewish property, 30,000 Jewish men arrested and sent to concentration camps, and an undetermined number of murders and other acts of personal violence.  This was the first act of widespread violence against Jews under the Nazis.  Mass murder began only after the war, and specifically after Hitler invaded Russia.

It should also be noted that the events of 1938 took place after Niemoller had been arrested (1937).  So, at the time Niemoller was arrested, the organized opposition had been fully suppressed and thousands send to Dachau.  Thousands of gay men had been arrested, to the point of interfering with police ability to handle ordinary crime.  Jehovah's Witnesses were facing economic persecution and some arrests for refusing military service.  Jews were being barred from most desirable jobs and many had been deported, but widespread violence had not yet begun.  In other words, things had not yet reached the level of the Holocaust.  But many Germans did realistically have to fear the knock in the night.

And so the question really has to be, not whether we are facing gas chambers, but whether we are facing the knock in the night.  And for immigrants in this country -- legal and illegal like -- the answer has to be yes.  We are seeing random immigrations sweeps, people being arrested when they make routine check-ins with their immigration officers, at people being arrested in immigration court, the deliberate refusal to identify where people are being held, arrests of citizens making any attempt to protect immigrants, an over 200 men shipped off to a prison in El Salvador that boasts that no one leaves alive. And now military forces sent to Los Angeles.

In fact, I heard a most alarming comment on a recent podcast.  The commenter remarked that many people compare Trump to Orban and ask if he had gone as far.  And plenty of things Trump has done, such as his attacks on the independence of the civil service, universities, and elite law firms, seem Orbanesque.  But Orban never went so far as ICE is going today.  Maybe Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines is a better point of comparison.

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*The Catholic Church, due to its transnational structure, was a tougher nut to crack.

Whoa!

 

So, with Elon Musk and Donald Trump fighting, should Democrats seek an alliance with Musk, as some have suggested?

On matters of policy, I would say no, absolutely not.  We are fighting the Trump budget on the grounds that it will strip millions of their health insurance.*  Musk's main problem with the bill is that it increases the deficit by not stripping enough people of their health insurance.  

On the other hand, the alarming side of the prospect of a Trump/Musk split has always been that one of them will win -- presumably Trump.  The prospect of Trump using the state to take down the world's richest man has a certain satisfaction, but it has alarming implications.  Hugo Chavez and Recep Erdogan both used fail coup attempts as pretexts to crack down on their opponents and consolidate their dictatorships.

Granted, we are not Russia.  Really we are not.  I am not in the least bit concerned that Musk will lead a private army against Washington, or that he will be killed in a mysterious plane crash.  But Steve Bannon has called for Trump to cancel contracts with Musk's companies, nationalize Starlink, strip Musk of his citizenship and deport him.**If the Trump Administration takes politically motivated actions against Musk or violates his rights, we must all champion him.  If the world's richest man is not safe, who among us can be?***

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*And other reasons as well that I hope to write about, but this is the one with the most public pull.
**I can even see a reasonable case for some of these things.  There is widespread suspicion that Musk has used DOGE to increase his federal contracts at the expense of rivals which, if true, should be rolled back.  Many people have made the case that Starlink is too great a concentration of military power in the hands of a private citizen and should be nationalized.  And while I see no good reason to deport Musk for technical visa violations, it has been  happening to a lot of people lately and what's sauce for the goose may be sauce for the gander.  But to the extent these things are politically motivated, they are extremely dangerous and must be fought.
***What do I make of Musk's allegations that there is incriminating material against Trump in the Epstein files?  Trump's friendship with Epstein, and his knowledge that Epstein likes 'em young are well documented.  Musk has had enough access to government at all levels that he might have some inside information.  On the other hand, Musk has a longstanding history of believing false and wildly paranoid things, so don't jump to any conclusions.

Many Levels of Niemoller's Poem

 

Martin Niemoller

 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 the Catholics
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Catholic*
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.


I learned about Niemoller's poem at an early age, knowing nothing about the author, only that is described the rise of the Nazis.  At the time, my interpretation was the simplest one -- freedom is indivisible.  None can be free unless all are free.

But over time, I began to understand more about the significance of the progression, and to see other layers of meaning.

One was when Jonah Goldberg came out with his ridiculous book, Liberal Fascism, claiming that Hitler was really a left-winger.  Niemoller's poem can come as a shorthand refutation as Hitler's victims parade from left to right -- Communists, then Socialist, then trade unionists, then Jews (broadly liberal), then (possibly) Catholics (generally conservative).  

Another is as a rejection of the morality that JD Vance called ordo amoris or Jonathan Haidt (at his worst) calls well-balanced values with a proper sense of group loyalty, i.e., the idea that everyone should be divided into an in-group of people who morally matter and an out-group of un-people who don't morally matter.  Admittedly, both Vance and Haidt appear to draw the boundary nationality -- since Hitler's early victims were fellow German citizens, Niemoller should have cared.  But really, neither Vance nor Haidt offer any really good reason why one should draw the line at citizenship.  If Niemoller originally drew the line more narrowly, neither man's reasoning offer a good reason why he should have drawn it more broadly.  Niemoller practiced ordo amoris.  He had well-balanced values, including a proper sense of group loyalty.  When people outside his in-group were targeted, he showed a commendable indifference.  When he was targeted other people stuck to their in-groups just as much as he did.  Too late, he learned the error of his ways.

Another insight came, of all places, from the Roman historian Gaius Sallustius Crispus.  He described a thwarted rebellion against Rome and Cicero (then serving as consul) proposed to execute the conspirators without trials.  Caesar warned against such an action:

These thirty began their administration by putting to death, even without a trial, all who were notoriously wicked, or publicly detestable; acts at which the people rejoiced, and extolled their justice. But afterward, when their lawless power gradually increased, they proceeded, at their pleasure, to kill the good and the bad indiscriminately, and to strike terror into all; and thus the state, overpowered and enslaved, paid a heavy penalty for its imprudent exultation.

Within our own memory, too, when the victorious Sylla ordered Damasippus,14 and others of similar character, who had risen by distressing their country, to be put to death, who did not commend the proceeding? All exclaimed that wicked and factious men, who had troubled the state with their seditious practices, had justly forfeited their lives. Yet this proceeding was the commencement of great bloodshed. For whenever any one coveted the mansion or villa, or even the plate or apparel of another, he exerted his influence to have him numbered among the proscribed. Thus they, to whom the death of Damasippus had been a subject of joy, were soon after dragged to death themselves; nor was there any cessation of slaughter, until Sylla had glutted all his partisans with riches.

Such excesses, indeed, I do not fear from Marcus Tullius [Cicero], or in these times. But in a large state there arise many men of various dispositions. At some other period, and under another consul, who, like the present, may have an army at his command, some false accusation may be credited as true; and when, with our example for a precedent, the consul shall have drawn the sword on the authority of the senate, who shall stay its progress, or moderate its fury?**

"First they came for the Communists. . ."  Those haunting words echoed with new meaning.   The early victims of the Nazis were not sympathetic people, especially to a conservative like Niemoller.***

Another point of significance here is that the Nazis targeted the organized opposition first.  Communists, Socialists, and unions are all organized structures with institutional power.  Jews and Catholics, by contrast, are much more diffuse groups.  And in that sense, "There was no one left to speak out for me," is not purely hyperbolic.  There were people, of course, who could have spoken out for him, but there were no organized institutions left to oppose the Nazis.  

In general, I would say, do not be too quick to quote Niemoller.  Stick to the face-eating leopards. But I am beginning to find that poem apt in the case of ICE.  More to come.

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*The inclusion of Catholics is debated. Certainly many Catholics continued to practice their faith openly in Nazi Germany, but the transnational nature of Catholicism made it the natural enemy of Nazi hypernationalism.
**Classical historians generally sided against Caesar and suspected that is solicitude for the conspirators may have been because of complicity. Modern readers would applaud him more if he had advocated for due process. Instead of calling for trial, Caesar was actually calling for non-capital punishment, still without trial. It should be noted that when Caesar became dictator, he practiced what he preached. He did not execute any of his political rivals.
***Indeed, Niemoller's own comments appear to confirm this interpretation, "We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians—should I be my brother's keeper?"