1. United States
2. Mich.
3. Letter

Vote no on any proposal to increase the defense budget by 50%. Yale historian Timothy Snyder, one of America's foremost scholars of authoritarianism, has identified this massive spending hike as a potential bribe to secure military loyalty for a coup attempt against American democracy. Trump has openly disrespected military personnel his entire life and even sold branded merchandise at their funerals. Now he wants to hand them a nearly 50% budget increase. Snyder warns this is "meant as a payoff for officers, soldiers, and sailors" to assist in overthrowing our constitutional order. The timing is no coincidence. Snyder also cautions that Trump may stage or exploit a domestic terror attack to justify nullifying elections, following the playbook of Vladimir Putin's 1999 apartment bombings that launched Russia's dictatorship. Any wartime emergency Trump manufactures should be met with extreme skepticism, not blank checks for the Pentagon. This isn't about national security. It's about buying the military's complicity in dismantling democracy. Reject this budget increase and any emergency powers Trump seeks to exploit the Iran conflict.