I have certainly heard the famous poem of German Pastor Niemerer, “the first they came” about the road to Nazi Germany. It can feel clichéd because it is one of the frequently quoted texts. “In the beginning they came for the Communists / And I didn't speak / Because I was not a Communist” the poem begins.
Then they came for the Jews
And I didn't say
Because I wasn't Jewish
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak for me
But despite its excessive exposure, Niemerer's poems have a less-than-appreciated subtlety. He describes the specific strategies the Nazis used to dismantle German democracy.
There is a reason why the Nazis targeted groups on Niemerah's list. German politics allowed them to be particularly easily demonstrated. They were either vulnerable minorities (Jews) or politically debated with the mainstream Germans (communists, socialists, trade unionists).
After rising to power, the Nazis sell power and use the power of prejudice and political polarization to entrust ordinary Germans to the dismantling of democracy in an effort to deal with the threat posed by threats like “Judao Bolshevis.”
What's happening in America now has a calm resonance of this old tactic. When engaged in illegal or boundary pushing behavior, the Trump administration usually chased highly polarized or unpopular targets. The idea is to turn the defense of the rule of law into a normal issue of defense or partisan politics in a widely disliked group.
The first known deportation of green cardholders targeted activists from the pro-Palestinian University at Columbia University. For this reason, Colombia was also the first university to target funding cutoffs. Trump is also targeting even less popular cohorts. The first group of American residents sent to do hard work in Salvador prisons was a group of people who claimed his administration was a member of the Tren de Aragua Gang.
Trump relies on the power of demonisation and polarisation twins to expand enforcement and justify their various efforts to attack civil liberties. They want to have fewer conversations about whether what Trump is doing is legal and a threat to freedom of speech, and the principle that it's a referendum on whether the target group is good or bad.
There are all signs that this pattern continues. And if we, as a society, cannot understand how Trump strategy works or where it leads, the damage to democracy can be devastating.
How Trump's strategy works
To see this Trump strategy take action, check out White House aide Stephen Miller's recent interview with CNN's Kasie Hunt.
During the interview, Hunt repeatedly pushes Miller to see if the administration violated a court order by sending members of Tren de Aragua to El Salvador. Miller refuses to engage in important issues of democratic principles. Instead, he repeatedly attempts to reconstruct the debate about the need to stand up against gangs, arguing that claiming legitimate elegance means handing over the country to the looters.
“How do you expel illegal alien invaders from our country? [and] If all deportations must be ruled by a district court judge, killing a little girl? “Miller says, “You mean you have no country. It means you have no sovereignty. It means you have no future.”
Of course, this is not a legal argument. If anything, it sounds like a parody of political debate: “Ah, are you against sending people to torture people in Salvador prisons without justification?
But this is as ridiculous as it is, and it has proven to be a powerful form of logic, not just in extreme cases like Nazi Germany.
For the years following 9/11, the Bush administration and its allies used similar arguments to trust critics for the policies that were proven by the event. The observers who warned about warrantless spies and threats to civil liberties from Guantanamo Bay were dismissed as terrorist sympathizers. Skeptics of the Iraq War were named Saddam Apology. This moral horror, like “You're with us or against us,” has addressed many people both at home and abroad.
The key role of partisan polarization
Of course, this kind of thing worked during the Bush era, as there was so much wound and rage among ordinary Americans in the wake of the 9/11 attack. Many Americans may dislike protesters on Tren de Aragua and the Palestinian campus, but there is no such thing as the level of public hysteria seen in the wake of one of the nation's biggest disasters.
This is why the Trump administration's rhetorical strategy utilizes another kind of divisional logic: the omnipotent power of partisan polarisation.
The Trump administration's rhetoric is not just about trying to connect its enemies to gang members and terrorists in general. They also try to connect judges and other nonpartisan authorities to Democrats. For example, at a press conference on Wednesday, spokesman Caroline Leavitt mentioned a judge who weighed the legality of El Salvador's deportation with “Democrat activists.”
The idea here is to assimilate the issue of basic legal principles into a familiar partisan script: Democrats vs Republicans. And by calling for the polarizing power of partisan politics, they portray what is truly a fundamental conflict with the rule of law as yet another spout between the two parties.
There is substantial evidence that this approach could actually work to justify Trump's policy.
Famous Holocaust historian Christopher Browning writes several essays in a review of a New York book documenting what he calls “troubling similarities” between today's interwar Germany and America. One of the key points of Browning is that the rise of Nazism was largely a warning tale about “hyperpolarization.” The elites on the central right of Germany were very disliked the left party, so they preferred Hitler, even to their tastes – and were willing to hand him exceptional powers to crack down on civil liberties to destroy socialism and communism.
Browning focuses his rage on the conservative elite, but he compares it to Paul von Hindenburg, the German president who made Sen. Mitch McConnell the Prime Minister of Hitler – social sciences say polarization can have a similar effect on ordinary voters.
In a 2020 paper, political scientists Matthew Graham and Milano Svorick published a paper that tested the impact of polarization on citizens' views on democracy. Using unusually high quality data, Svolik and Graham were able to demonstrate that almost 3.45% – they are willing to vote against candidates from their preferred party. parable The candidate engaged in clear anti-democratic behavior.
They argue that this is a function of polarization. When you dislike the other side enough, you feel that the policy interests of the election are really high – and voters are willing to overlook even the terrible abuse of power.
“In a sharply divided society, voters outperform the purpose of partisans beyond democratic principles,” they write.
This analysis was very important to understand why Trump could win in 2024, even after the stain on January 6th. Today, Trump's rhetorical strategies help us understand how they hope to paralyze Americans, especially fellow Republicans, against attacks on their fundamental freedoms.
