A father’s elegy and free-swinging political chronicle, “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy” begins on Dec. 31, 2020, the day Rep. Jamie Raskin’s 25-year-old son, Tommy, commits suicide. It then continues through the seditious riot on Capitol Hill just a week later and ends on Feb. 13, 2021, as 43 GOP senators refuse to convict President Trump following his second impeachment.
After 25 years of teaching constitutional law at American University, Raskin — a liberal Democrat — won a seat in the Maryland Senate from Montgomery County in 2007. Elected then to the U.S. Congress in 2017, he now finds himself at the epicenter of the House Select Committee’s investigation into the January 6 Capitol insurrection.
Who better than a constitutional professor to take on a constitutional criminal, Donald J. Trump?
Raskin’s anguish at Tommy’s death mixes with his anger at Trump and his gang. He takes us from his family’s private tragedy in Takoma Park to the public eruption on Capitol Hill. Deeply personal, his complicated book is a jumble of sorrow, affection fury, political reporting, and lessons in the law, with his family in mourning and his nation in shock.
Raskin reaches into history for this parallel. In the aftermath of the 1964 murders in Mississippi of three civil rights volunteers, Bob Moses — visionary leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee — had posed this question: If the county sheriff does the murder, then what happens to justice?
Considering Trump’s role in the January 6 debacle, Raskin reframes Moses’ question: If the U.S. president plans and launches an insurrection against the government, what happens to our constitutional democracy?
Raskin casts Trump not as a homicidal sheriff, but as a firebug fire chief: “Trump was the town fire chief, who is paid to put out fires, but who instead sends a mob to set the theater on fire. Then, when the fire alarms go off, he does nothing but sit back, encourage the mob to continue its arson, and watch on TV, with unmitigated glee and delight, as the fire spreads.”
And there’s this: Was the January 6 assault on the Capitol and Congress merely a petulant tantrum, or was it an attempted coup that failed to secure another term for Trump after he lost to Joe Biden? Raskin argues that Trump and his cronies failed at a coup.
To analyze this attempted power grab, Raskin describes “three essential rings of activity.” The first was “the riot ring, containing multitudes of protesters turned rioters,” those thousands of mostly aimless MAGA acolytes who stormed the Capitol, skirmished with police, and finally were routed by the National Guard. Hundreds of these Trump minions have been charged with various offenses.
The second ring was the “militarized insurrection ring,” Proud Boys, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, Ku Kluxers, private militias, neo-Nazis, et al., organized, armed, and primed to injure and even kill members of Congress and Vice President Pence. After arrests, this group faces far more serious charges.
The third was the “innermost ring of the coup that Trump operated, likely along with Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Michael Flynn, Sen. Josh Hawley, Rep. Jim Jordan, and the most extreme elements of the GOP House and Senate conferences.” They are all under intense investigation.
Make no mistake! January 6 was no last-minute, bumbling clown act. The insurrection was aimed to force Pence to repudiate his constitutional restrictions by rejecting the electoral votes from Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. This would have pushed Biden’s Electoral College tally below 270 and triggered a “contingent election” in the House. Ta-da! Coup! Trump retakes the Oval Office!
Item: Trump’s defenders claim the First Amendment shields him from consequences after his incendiary speech to his mob on the Mall. Raskin counters by asking, “How can the president claim that free speech gives him the right to destroy our constitutional democracy, steal our election, and make a mockery out of everyone else’s free speech?”
Item: Trump’s defenders claim his second impeachment was illegitimate because it occurred only a week before the end of his four-year term. Raskin argues that a “January exception” to the Constitution would be “an invitation to the president to take his best shot at anything he may want to do on his way out the door, including violent means to lock that door, to hold on to the Oval Office at all costs, and to block the peaceful transfer of power.”
“Unthinkable” is a difficult book at every level, describing as it does the emotional aftermath of Tommy’s death, the searing details of Trump’s insurrectionary coup attempt on January 6, Trump’s second impeachment by the House, and his acquittal by the Senate.
And we, the people are not past this yet, not by a long shot!
Almost daily we learn of a new development in a court case. Another January 6 rioter is convicted. Another witness testifies. The House Select Committee issues another subpoena. The Select Committee subpoenas “alternate electors” from seven states. The Select Committee seeks information from Ivanka Trump. Georgia’s attorney general assembles a grand jury. State and city courts in New York examine Trump’s business practices.
As Benjamin Franklin left Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention ended in 1787, so the story goes, a woman asked him, “Doctor, what have we? A republic or a monarchy?” Franklin replied, “a republic, madame, if you can keep it.”
Maryland’s Jamie Raskin adores his family and his large circle of friends. He loves the law, is passionate about the Constitution, and detests liars, thieves, and political mountebanks, in particular ex-President Trump and Rep. Jordan. When we do manage to keep our republic, he’ll be a big reason why!
Gren Whitman has been a leader in neighborhood, umbrella, public interest, and political groups and committees, and worked for civil rights and anti-war organizations. He is now retired and lives in Rock Hall, MD.
Chip Heartfield says
Let’s please look at the whole picture with regard to Congressman Raskin; it appears he (and his wife) have fallen victim to some of the same ethical challenges as so many in Washington: https://www.businessinsider.com/democratic-rep-jamie-raskin-violated-federal-conflict-of-interest-law-2022-2.
Stephen Schaare says
I have read plenty of hard left garbage, but you take the cake.
Is Raskin blaming Trump for the death of his son?
Very kooky.
Maureen Curry says
Thank God for Jamie Raskin.
Deirdre LaMotte says
That remark is uncalled for. His son committed suicide
about the same time the far right activists stormed the
Capital to stop a fair election. His daughter and husband were there for the verification of Biden’s Presidency and had to bunker down to avoid the mob. As a father, he was terrified.
Seriously, WTH is wrong with you?
Willard T Engelskirchen says
Thank you for this.