[1]U.S. Senator Chris Murphy

I try to be a straight shooter. I don’t stoke fear or fan flames for the sake of attention or political points, but there’s no way around what is happening right now.

We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis. Our democracy is being lit on fire while one man tries to use the government to enrich himself and his billionaire friends at our expense, dragging our democracy down with him.

On Monday night, Donald Trump announced a shutdown of nearly all federal funding. It created an immediate crisis for our kids, health care system, public safety, seniors and more. Payments for Medicaid, Head Start pre-schools and more were turned off immediately across the country, and when asked about the shut off, the White House said they’d “get back to you.”

Are you kidding me? Trump is trying to seize power. Kings use the money in a nation’s treasury to reward friends and punish enemies. That’s what Donald Trump wants. It’s blatantly unconstitutional. Only Congress has the power to allocate funding.

He’s normalized political violence done in his name. He’s fired a dozen inspector generals in federal agencies — independent watch dogs who make sure the rules are followed and your money isn’t stolen.

And if he takes from Congress its constitutional power to decide where taxpayer money goes, guess who does not have to worry about their funding being turned off? The companies owned by his billionaire friends and red states run by those loyal to him.

And with faith in our courts — packed by Trump-approved politicians in robes — at an all time low, how can we expect anyone to trust that there will be legitimate checks on his actions?

This is how we go from democracy to oligarchy.

Democrats need to stand up and fight back, and I’ve spent the last two days trying to model the kind of action and talk that can help win the day. Republicans have abdicated their responsibility and are telling the country that they intend to let Trump run roughshod over our government and seize unlimited power.

The Senate has meaningful leverage. Not a single nominee should even get a vote until it’s clear that this will never happen again. Any one of us can slow down Trump’s cabinet nominations and block business from proceeding as usual.

That’s exactly what I did last week with the CIA director, and I know that my Democratic colleagues are now prepared to join me in these efforts. But let us not ignore the absolute insanity of Republican Senators fully deferring the job they were elected to do to Trump.

So I need your help to fight back. I’m giving every minute I have to fighting back and stopping our country from becoming a banana republic. So I am asking:

If you’re with me, please make a contribution to my campaign to tell all of my colleagues — Republicans and Democrats — that this is the kind of leadership you want to see in the Senate. Every dollar will be used to help hold them accountable and take back power for working people.

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If you follow me on Twitter or have seen my media interviews, you know that I’ve been making as much noise about this as humanly possible. It can feel like screaming into a void at times with the lack of urgency or alarm that I see around Washington, but I cannot in good conscience stand by as we watch our democracy and constitution plunge into crisis.

All day, people were left scrambling as federal funding suddenly froze. This is not a game. There are real and serious consequences from these actions, and we all have to shine a spotlight on it.

This fight requires each of us to play a role. Far too much is happening and far too quickly for any one person to hold Republicans accountable, but if we care about our country and our future, we all have to get off the sidelines and get to work.

Every best wish,

Chris

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