The day after Holocaust Remembrance Day, North Carolina Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn appears to have modified a commonly cited poem by a German Lutheran pastor who survived a Nazi concentration camp to sell merchandise on his campaign website. “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist,” the frequently cited poem attributed to pastor Martin Niemöller reads. “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.” Cawthorn created his own version of the popular poem to sell t-shirts and face masks on his