Leaders of conservative think tanks and advocacy organizations are urging Congress to provide “robust and consistent” funding to state and local governments to bolster election security.
In a letter to House and Senate leaders, the signatories cite recent cyberattacks that threatened national security and the economy, saying those incursions demonstrate the need to protect election infrastructure.
“Leading computer science experts agree that hacking threats against US voting systems are growing and that increasingly out-of-date elections infrastructure make for relatively easy targets,” reads the letter, which was signed by leaders of Americans for Tax Reform, R Street Institute and FreedomWorks, among others.
The letter details security risks to be addressed, including equipment and databases that can be easily hacked; identifies Russia, Iran, China and North Korea as potential attackers; and cites efforts by Republicans and Democrats to address the risks.
"In light of these recent cyberattacks, we urge you to support robust and consistent assistance to state and local governments to ensure the integrity of our nation’s election infrastructure," they wrote.
The letter argues that the parties have an opportunity to build on common ground around shared security goals.
“There is growing bipartisan consensus that supports commonsense solutions to this challenge, including voter-verified paper ballots and audits,” they wrote. “There is also strong support for better federal oversight of voting machine vendors and for strictly keeping voting and tabulation infrastructure off of the Internet.”
In 2020, Congress authorized the distribution of $425 million to the states to improve election security measures. That followed on the heels of the $380 million in grants approved in 2018.
This year, Democrats have packed additional election security provisions into the For the People Act, a comprehensive measure negotiated with West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat who had opposed earlier electoral reform legislation. But both measures, along with the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, have been blocked by Senate Republicans this year.
“Across the board, our federal government is far too expansive and expensive, but there are times where it has a role to play. Protecting our elections against foreign threats and providing funding for election security are two such cases,” said Matthew Gerner, a fellow in the governance program at R Street and a signatory on the letter.
“While there are some admirable provisions of the so-called For the People Act, the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, they make the problem of an expansive and expensive federal government even worse,” he said. “The For the People Act and the Freedom to Vote Act infringe on free speech rights, and all three bills shift control over elections from state and local governments to Washington, DC. None of them are the right path for federal election legislation.”
The National Election Defense Coalition, which works with groups on the left and the right to secure elections, helped organize the letter.
“Today, the issue of federal funding and prudent standards for paper ballots and audits are national priorities,” said NEDC President Ben Ptashnik. “With clear liberal, centrist and conservative support, Republican leaders in Congress and conservative Democratic Senators like [Joe] Manchin, should do whatever it takes to overcome obstructionism and rebuild confidence in American democracy.”
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.