1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

The United States is at a crisis point. The level of government-sanctioned misinformation under the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is unprecedented in modern American history. We have not seen a president weaponize disinformation at this scale since Richard Nixon’s Watergate cover-up—or, in a global context, since authoritarian regimes like Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Viktor Orbán’s Hungary manipulated public discourse to consolidate power. The difference now is that this disinformation is amplified in real-time by a billionaire tech mogul, Elon Musk, who has turned government websites and his personal platform, X, into propaganda tools to deceive the American people. If our leaders do not act immediately, the very foundation of our democracy will erode beneath us. Recent reports confirm that Musk, leveraging DOGE and his control over key communications channels, is flooding the public sphere with falsehoods about Social Security fraud, government contracts, and election security. These lies are not harmless—they are strategic. The false claim that millions of deceased Americans receive Social Security benefits is designed to justify gutting the program. The deliberate misrepresentation of an $8 million ICE contract as an $8 billion scandal is meant to fabricate government waste and fuel public outrage. These tactics mirror those used by autocratic leaders to dismantle democratic institutions under the guise of “efficiency” and “truth-seeking.” This is not governance. This is an information war waged against the American people by those in power. We demand that Congress, state legislatures, and local officials take immediate action to rein in this reckless abuse of power. We must enforce strict oversight of government communications, ensure transparency in digital platforms spreading state-sponsored misinformation, and hold those in leadership—both elected and unelected—accountable for deceiving the public. The future of our democracy depends on whether our leaders have the courage to stand up now. If you do nothing, history will remember this moment as the point when America slid toward authoritarianism. We are calling on you to stop it. Act now. Our democracy is on the line.