“Black Vote, Black Power,” a collaboration between Keith Boykin and Word In Black, examines the issues, the candidates, and what’s at stake for Black America in the 2024 presidential election. In 1946, a prominent Lutheran pastor named Martin Niemöller wrote a famous poem about his experience living through the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. During Adolf Hitler’s early years in the 1920s and early 1930s, Niemöller “sympathized with many Nazi ideas and supported radically right-wing political movements,” according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.  Keith Boykin breaks down how a Trump dictatorship will, in the end come for all of us. RELATED: How Will Project 2025 Affect Black America? But once Hitler came to power in 1933, Niemöller began to realize the danger. He spoke out against Nazi control of the church and was imprisoned in concentration camps from 1938 to 1945, narrowly avoiding execution.  A vote-by-mail ballot on October 23, 2024 in Silver Spring, Maryland. (Photo Illustration by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) It’s considered dangerous in American politics to draw comparisons to Nazi Germany, and no serious person does so lightly. But in recent weeks we’ve seen evidence that Donald Trump’s own advisers view him as an unprecedented threat to democracy. His former White House chief of staff, John Kelly, and his top general, Mark Milley, have both called him a “fascist.” Even his running mate, JD Vance, once called Trump “America’s Hitler.” And Trump, himself, has said that he needs the kind of generals that Hitler had. Trump has tried to downplay the threat, but he has admitted that he would be a dictator “on day one,” would terminate the U.S. Constitution, and would fire Special Counsel Jack Smith “within two seconds” as his first act as president. This is a perilous moment for American democracy, and with that in mind, I offer this poem: First they came for the old Black peopleAnd I didn’t speak upBecause I wasn’t an old Black person  Then they came for the young Black peopleAnd I didn’t speak upBecause I wasn’t a young Black person  Then they came for the Native AmericansAnd I didn’t speak upBecause I wasn’t Native American  Then they came for the Mexican AmericansAnd I didn’t speak upBecause I wasn’t Mexican American Then they came for the MuslimsAnd I didn’t speak upBecause I wasn’t a Muslim Then they came for the protestersAnd I didn’t speak upBecause I wasn’t a protester Then they came for the people with disabilities And I didn’t speak upBecause I didn’t have a disability Then they came for the AfricansAnd I didn’t speak upBecause I wasn’t African Then they came for the Asian AmericansAnd I didn’t speak upBecause I wasn’t Asian American Then they came for the Black womenAnd I didn’t speak upBecause I wasn’t a Black woman Then they came for the rest of the womenAnd I didn’t speak upBecause I wasn’t a woman Then they came for the trans peopleAnd I didn’t speak upBecause I wasn’t trans. Then they came for the Haitian AmericansAnd I didn’t speak upBecause I wasn’t Haitian Then they came for meAnd there was no one leftTo speak for me. Keith Boykin is a New York Times–bestselling author, TV and film producer, and former CNN political commentator. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, Keith served in the White House, cofounded the National Black Justice Coalition, cohosted the BET talk show My Two Cents, and taught at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University in New York. He’s a Lambda Literary Award-winning author and editor of seven books. He lives in Los Angeles. The post Trump’s Vow to Be a Dictator Will Destroy Us All appeared first on Word In Black. The post Trump’s Vow to Be a Dictator Will Destroy Us All appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.