1. United States
2. Mich.
3. Letter

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” is anything but beautiful. It is a death sentence for countless citizens whose only crimes are living in poverty and having disability or illness. It is a death sentence for children as much as the elderly. It is a death sentence for grandparents and single mothers and premature babies. It is a death sentence for me. Because I am disabled and seriously ill, society views me as disposable, as collateral damage, as less than human. They see my disabilities and my illness, but don’t see the work I do for an international nonprofit or how I volunteer heavily in my community or how I am a daughter and a sister and a best friend. They don’t see that I was a national merit scholar who attended Vanderbilt University on a full academic scholarship or that I dedicated myself to teaching until my health crashed. I am reduced to an expenditure and if nothings by changes I will end up nothing more than a statistic in some future textbook covering the rise and hopefully fall of this fascist regime. Cutting SNAP benefits, leaving children and families and the elderly hungry. Decimating Medicare and Medicaid, leaving a wake of death and destruction. All so the ultra wealthy can receive more tax breaks. The time for working across the aisle is long gone. Now is the time to fight like you and this country have never fought before. Lives are at stake, these lives are in your hands. Don’t be silent. You can’t be silent. Silence is complicity. Do everything possible to end the bill, to loudly and clearly say no, to finally draw a line in the sand and abide by it. History is watching you. Your legacy is being formed and your story being written right now. What do you want those to say?