Rep. Jamie Raskin says he’s often asked where he drew the strength from to serve as lead manager for the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, considering that the historic event took place in the aftermath of his son’s suicide and the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“I wish I had a good answer,” Raskin (D-8th) told Jmore Publisher Dr. Scott Rifkin during a Jmore virtual conversation May 4 sponsored by Nemphos Braue LLC and supported by media partner WYPR.
Raskin said he was motivated and inspired by the commitment and hard work of his peers working on the impeachment proceedings.
“We had remarkable teams of investigators with a lot of passion,” Raskin said. “Everybody there was a victim of [the insurrection] and in that room. Every one of us could’ve been killed. So there was a lot of passion and anger, but also love for America, for the Constitution, for what this country has done for our families. We weren’t going to let insurrectionists destroy what our families fought for.
“This is a precious legacy we have, and I wasn’t going to let it be destroyed by people wearing T-shirts that said, ‘Camp Auschwitz,’ or ‘Finish the Job.’”
When asked by Rifkin, the event’s moderator, if he thinks American democracy is currently at a fragile juncture, Raskin said, “That’s up to us. This is a living history.”
He noted that in some ways, Trump’s second impeachment was less partisan than any impeachment trial in history, despite falling short of the two-thirds majority required to convict the former president.
“It’s true that Donald Trump beat the constitutional spread, but we believe we convicted him in the court of public opinion and in the eyes of history,” Raskin said.
Trump is simultaneously a pariah in national politics and the face of the Republican Party, Raskin said. He compared Trump’s popularity among many Republicans to a cult, and noted that the GOP did not offer a national platform during the 2020 election.
“The platform is whatever Donald Trump wants it to be,” he said. “There is damage there that can polarize the country further from reality and fact-based policies to QAnon and derangement.
“Is that the future? That’s up to us.”
Increasingly in GOP circles, support for Trump and rejection that President Joe Biden won the election legitimately are the norm, Raskin said. He said that extends to conspiracy theories about coronavirus vaccines, Jewish billionaire George Soros and what really transpired at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
“We’re hearing more and more of a whitewash of what happened,” Raskin said, while noting that the conspiracy theories make him feel more vindicated about attempting to convict Trump in the wake of the insurrection.
“We needed to create that historical record, despite how Donald Trump tried to brainwash people,” he said.
Raskin said he hopes Republican lawmakers will eventually agree to a bipartisan commission to investigate what led to the Capitol insurrection. But he also said many of his Republican colleagues are now tying the creation of such a body to investigations of Antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement as well.
“It’s a game of propaganda and smoke screens,” he said.
Raskin called for strengthening the public education system and regulating the internet and social media outlets to stem the tide of hate and conspiracy theories.
“The result is anti-Semitism and racism,” he said. “’The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ are back now and bigger than ever because of the internet. … We are in the process now of trying to educate social media tech giants how to show responsibility.”
Raskin praised Twitter for banning Trump after he continued to challenge the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
When asked how the government can encourage more of the population to receive vaccinations, Raskin said, “The role of government and leadership is not to lie. People need to understand that doctors and nurses [are being vaccinated]. If the government isn’t run by people who make things up, the people’s faith will be restored.
“With the last administration, we were fighting for a real [pandemic] plan. Now, we have to convince those audiences of the vaccine-hesitant to do this.”
Raskin said he believes that bipartisan agreements can be reached despite the polarization among legislators on the federal level.
“We know that Republicans want to polarize everything. They want Biden to fail,” he said. “But when you go out in the country, you find more bipartisan consensus. Most people don’t hate immigrants, and they understand what America has meant to their families. I think we can get there. … But let’s not be dumb. Let’s be non-partisan.”
In addition, Raskin said he feels the nation can make progress on racial equality issues, and proudly pointed to the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020.
“We can make sensible progress on this,” he said. “There are police forces, such as in New York City, where you get real cultures of hostility. But we must always remember that we are servants of the people. The people govern.”
Watch a replay of the event here:
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