Unthinkable by Congressman Jamie Raskin – A Book Recommendation

The book Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy is U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin’s (D-Maryland) remarkable account of the second impeachment of former president Donald Trump, coinciding with his experience of tremendous grief over losing his 25-year-old son, Tommy, who took his own life just a week before the insurrection on Jan 6. What’s most touching is the way he honors his son’s memory, a person of rare conscientiousness (e.g. a vegan and champion of the global poor), intellect and debate chops. Throughout the preparation for the impeachment trial, which the representative was asked to lead by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Tommy Raskin served as a guiding light–his muse–who influenced his decisions, thought process and tactics, and as a result, helped lead to the outcome of the most bi-partisan impeachment in American history. Aside from the more typical line of thought that connects the Jan 6 Insurrection to one of the country’s greatest threats against democratic government, the constitutional scholar analogizes the core of the event to the Lost Cause, the myth and example of historical negationism that perpetuates the falsehood that the Civil War was about states’ rights, rather than slavery, while our modern day version hinges on the demonstrably false notion that the “stolen election” is the coup we should remember.

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