I see that Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News analyst referenced the infamous Martin Niemöller "first they came" statement regarding the TSA. Glenn Beck, in one of his daily rants against the dangers of progressive radicals, has also cited it. In these cases the quote has been trotted out to warn about the dangers of big government and progressivism. Slippery-slope arguments are perfectly fine political rhetoric, however, the constant analogizing of U.S. liberals to the Nazis, merits context about this quotation.First, to the man who said it: Martin Niemöller. A conservative Lutheran minister who initially supported Hitler's rise to power, Niemöller increasingly saw the Nazi regime as a danger that needed to be confronted. He began to speak out openly against the regime, and for that he was imprisoned in concentration camps from 1937 to 1945. His elegant words about the dangers of staying silent as different groups are targeted for persecution have become a profound and universal admonition.
That said, the quote is often misstated as referring only to Jews. Professor Harold Marcuse at UC-Santa Barbara, whose expertise is in modern German history, has a very comprehensive website about the quotation and Niemöller. Based on that, I have placed below the most accurate version of it (emphasis added):
"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."
Yes, the people who they "first came for" were, in fact, Communists, socialists, and trade unionists. The reasons are fairly straightforward: the German left, particularly the more moderate (but still quite progressive) Social Democrats, were Hitler's chief opponents. On a practical level, they represented alternative sources of political power that Hitler needed to eliminate to assert complete control.
Ideologically, the situation is somewhat more complicated. Fascism is a frankly weird ideology, melding some left-wing ideas (a disdain for capitalism) with other views more associated with the political right (hyper-nationalism and militarism).* I hesitate to call Hitler "right-wing," but it is definitively the case that most everyone who identified as "left" in Germany opposed the Nazis.
Of course, Beck and his fellow travelers cannot be bothered with such details. Speaking of Beck however, remind me again, who gives regular speeches denouncing socialism and social democracy and insisting they must be combated vigorously? And who sees unions as a malignant force in our society? Well, let's see, Glenn Beck and . . . Adolf Hitler! Why, could it be, that Glenn Beck is a Nazi sympathizer?
Actually, no. Just because he opposes some of the ideologies that fought Nazism does not make him a Nazi. There were conservatives (like Niemöller) who stood up against the Nazis too. But sadly, such historical complexities apparently do not fit into sarcastic, ill-informed rants made in front of a chalkboard.
*Hopefully this image gives a sense of how difficult placing the Nazis on the conventional ideological spectrum is. This is a Nazi election poster from 1932, portraying Social Democrats and capitalists as part of the same evil; it states (paradoxically) that "Marxism is the patron saint of Capitalism."