Friends,

Before I ran for the U.S. Senate, I was an investigative journalist leading a team that exposed corruption and human rights abuses worldwide.

This report in The New York Times reminded me of what I saw in many of those investigations:

More and more, the atmosphere under Trump reminds me of countries where dissent is silenced by intimidation.

From the article:

Fired federal workers who are worried about losing their homes ask not to be quoted by name. University presidents fearing that millions of dollars in federal funding could disappear are holding their fire. Chief executives alarmed by tariffs that could hurt their businesses are on mute. ...

“When you see important societal actors — be it university presidents, media outlets, C.E.O.s, mayors, governors — changing their behavior in order to avoid the wrath of the government, that’s a sign that we’ve crossed the line into some form of authoritarianism,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard and the co-author of the influential 2018 book “How Democracies Die.”

This is unacceptable in the United States of America.

As Trump dismantles checks on his power and purges the government to fill every office with loyalists, more and more Americans are too afraid of retaliation to speak up.

This descent into an un-American America must be stopped. We must regain Congressional power.

I’m the ONLY Democratic Senator up for re-election in a state Trump won.

That means I’m MAGA’s #1 target for defeat.

Help me beat them again, just like we did in 2021.

Please split a contribution between Senator Angela Alsobrooks and my campaign today.

Thank you for chipping in if you can.

- Jon