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 continues through the seditious riot at the Capitol 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 insurrection on Capitol Hill.
Who better than a constitutional law 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, fury, political reporting, and lessons in the law, with his family in mourning and his nation in shock.
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 MAGA acolytes who stormed the Capitol, fought hit-and-miss with Capitol 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,” the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, Ku Kluxers, private militias, neo-Nazis, et al., who were organized, armed, and ready to injure and even kill members of Congress and Vice President Mike 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.
Eight senators and 139 representatives — Andrew P. Harris (R-MD1) among them — abetted this effort by voting not to certify the vote counts from six states.
January 6 was no last-minute, bumbling clown act. No, it was an insurrection aimed at forcing 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!
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?”
Trump’s defenders also 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.”
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Unthinkable is difficult at every level, detailing 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 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 walked out of Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention concluded 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!
As a community organizer, journalist, administrator, project planner/manager, and consultant,
Gren Whitman has led neighborhood, umbrella, public interest, and political committees and groups, and worked for civil rights and anti-war organizations.
