They are already coming for you

 

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.

—Martin Niemöller

 

The world would be a better place if this kind of sentiment was unnecessary; if all people would speak out for others out of common humanity with no need for any kind of threat to themselves. Many people do, but sometimes it is not enough. There are always reasons why it is too hard right now, and the rest of us need reminding that the choice is not between fighting or not fighting - it is between fighting now with allies or fighting later without.

But it leaves out an important aspect of why authoritarians should be resisted when they come for "them". Even if you are of the purest and most unimpeachable stock, who would always be on the right side of the barbed wire. It's not that they might come for you - it's that they will always be coming for someone because they have no better ideas.

They don't have a health plan, or an infrastructure strategy, or a way to improve education or lower the crime rate. Genuinely good policy is hard work and takes persuasion and care, and it will improve the lives of a great many people who are simply not relevant to them. Demonizing outgroups is a shortcut to power that takes far less effort, and what it tells you is that the authoritarians will make the entire country worse off through incompetence or malice - it doesn't really matter which. Mussolini didn't make the trains run on time, he just announced that he had.

If the authoritarians get in, they will keep finding out-groups to go after to hide the fact that they have nothing to offer and it will only stop when the general population declares that they've had enough. The more entrenched they are, the harder and more destructive that will be for everyone.

The time to fight the authoritarians is when they are weakest, and that means now. Even if they like you, they will still ruin you.