On the last day of 2020, Tommy Raskin, the 25-year-old son of Rep. Jamie Raskin, ended his own life. Days later, Raskin was at the Capitol on January 6, with his daughter Hannah and the husband of his other daughter, Tabitha, for the certification of the electoral vote. The three lived through the harrowing hours, as Trump-inspired insurrectionists attacked Congress and tried to stop the transfer of power. These two traumas were distinct, one personal and intimate, the other with ramifications for an entire nation. Yet for Raskin, his wife, Sarah, and their daughters, these different nightmares were intertwined, each striking at and undermining core assumptions about life and their world. One could be broken by either.

Yet Raskin, amid the deepest grief, took on a weighty assignment: leading the House managers for the second impeachment of Donald Trump. That entailed devising the legal arguments and strategies for the trial in the Senate—and assuming the high-profile role as chief prosecutor. How to do that with the burden of immense suffering? The trial ended in a majority vote for conviction, 57 to 43, with seven Republicans finding Trump guilty, and the other members of the minority party essentially accepting Trump’s betrayal. That was 10 votes shy of the 67 votes required for a conviction but the largest bipartisan vote for an impeachment conviction in US history. Quite an accomplishment for a former constitutional law professor, especially under the horrific personal circumstances.

Raskin has written a poignant, sad, insightful, and compelling memoir of those weeks: Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy. It is a stunning work: a biography of Tommy, an account of one of the worst days in the life of America, and a behind-the-scenes recounting of the effort to hold Trump accountable for his assault on the republic. Tommy, a Harvard law student at the time of his death, was brilliant, creative, empathetic, perceptive, and passionate. I knew him and can attest that he was an unusually excellent human being. (His father and I are friends and neighbors.) Raskin’s depiction of his remarkable son is both inspiring and almost unbearably heartbreaking, given the far-too-soon ending to his story. He writes with gut-wrenching frankness about the depression that Tommy could not escape and his own grief and guilt. He examines the connections between his family’s tragedy and that which befell the nation days later. And with erudition, grace, and disquiet, he examines the present danger to democracy. This is an elegantly crafted and painfully honest book.

A few days ago, Raskin and I discussed Unthinkable, Tommy, and the impeachment. We could have done this while walking our dogs (our regular paths overlap). Instead, we did it online and recorded the chat. I asked how one writes about not one but two unfathomable traumas while still rocked by each. We discussed Trump’s plot to overturn the election results and how close it came to succeeding. And I asked Raskin what critique of the book the always-astute Tommy would have. His candid answer surprised and moved me. Our conversation will be posted at the Mother Jones site. But for readers of This Land, we are making it available sooner. You can see all of it by clicking on this video:

And while I have your attention, let me ask you to watch the below video of Tommy. From an early age, as Raskin writes, Tommy was an amateur ethicist, obsessed—in a good way—with determining how a human ought to live in this imperfect world. He wrote poems and essays to explore moral questions and advance his own moral vision. (He also did stand-up comedy.) He was a natural-born philosopher. In one essay, he observed, “We may object to Trump’s condescending rhetoric and galling outbursts about so-called shithole countries, but at the end of the day, we share in his general indifference to the preventable horrors that befall many inhabitants of these countries.” He sought to challenge people, especially liberals and progressives comfortable with their assumptions. And he was an avid vegan, eager to press the ethical case for veganism without resorting to self-righteous indignation. One of his most impressive works was a long spoken-word piece called “Where War Begins,” in which Tommy compares the violence humans wage against animals to the violence humans wage against each other. Whether you’re a vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, or carnivore, check it out. You will see that Tommy’s death is a tremendous loss for us all. His family has established the Tommy Raskin Memorial Fund for People and Animals.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at thisland@motherjones.com.

The Watch, Read, and Listen List

Being the Ricardos. There is much that is excellent about Aaron Sorkin’s latest political entertainment, Being the Ricardos, which streams on Amazon Prime. This mostly true story of the onscreen and business successes of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz—who together pioneered a sitcom with a Latino lead and operated their own production company—is compacted into a single eventful week in 1953. At this point, I Love Lucy is a smash. But there’s trouble. Ball had to appear privately before the House Un-American Activities Committee to explain why she, in 1936, had registered to vote as a Communist. Her explanation is simple: She checked the box all those years ago as a favor to her grandfather, who raised her and who was a leftie. She isn’t and never was a commie. The committee seems satisfied by her account. But someone leaks, and the media reports that America’s favorite funny lady was once a Red(!). Will this end her career? How will Ricky—I mean, Desi—react? And what about Fred and Ethel? Sorkin follows Desilu through this fateful week and weaves in back stories and other drama covering Arnaz’s philandering, his fight with network executives to write Ball’s real-life pregnancy into the show (can you say “pregnant” on TV?), and Ball’s fiercely perfectionist approach to work and her hardball relationship with her fellow actors. Nicole Kidman defies the skeptics and delivers a strong and captivating portrayal of Ball, doing a wonderful job distinguishing Ball’s voice on and off the show. And Javier Bardem sings—literally and figuratively—as Arnaz.

But...there’s one big but. At least for me. And stop here if you don’t want a mild spoiler. The problem: Sorkin turns J. Edgar Hoover into a hero. The movie climaxes with Arnaz pulling a stunt. Days after Ball has been outed as a once-upon-a-time Communist—when the big question is, will the public still adore her after this revelation?—Arnaz invites reporters to the taping of that week’s episode. Before the show begins, he appears before the studio audience and takes a call from the FBI chief, who says loudly and clearly that the bureau has cleared Ball of any subversive tendencies. There is nothing Red about the redhead. And Arnaz gives a speech noting that his family fled Cuba because of communism. When Ball comes forward, the audience applauds wildly. They still love Lucy. Her career is safe, and we know that tens of millions will get to laugh at her stomping grapes in Italy. However...the Hoover call is made-up. No such thing happened. Earlier in the day, a member of HUAC—not Hoover—publicly absolved Ball of any wrongdoing. Yet Sorkin casts Hoover as Ball’s champion. The man who spied on Martin Luther King Jr. and tried to blackmail the civil rights hero into committing suicide deserves no such honor. It’s a shame that uninformed viewers will be left with the impression that this scoundrel who abused his power in so many ways over many decades saved Ball’s career. (By the way, Hoover and his FBI snoops continued to collect information on Ball after all this.) I’m a Sorkin fan. Watch The Trial of the Chicago Seven if you haven’t. It’s a fantastic film, particularly Sacha Baron Cohen’s depiction of my old friend Abbie Hoffman. Being the Ricardos is a treat, as fine a film as Sorkin’s best work. He just should have kept Hoover out of the picture.

Slow Burn: The LA Riots. It was 30 years ago that a massive uprising struck Los Angeles, after a jury failed to convict four LA police officers who had been caught on video brutally beating Rodney King, a 25-year-old Black man who had been pulled over for speeding. The police assault on King was a first: a national news story about police violence based on a video taken by a nearby civilian. It seemed an open-and-shut case. But the lawyers for the officers succeeded in moving the trial from LA County to Simi Valley in next-door Ventura County—an area where many cops lived—and a jury that contained not a single Black person kicked the cops loose. LA exploded into days of violence, fires, and destruction. The sixth season of Slate’s Slow Burn podcast chronicles the riots, what led to them, and what did (and did not) happen afterward. It’s a brilliant retelling of an awful story that covers the pre-King misconduct of the notoriously abusive LAPD, run at the time by its arrogant and domineering chief, Daryl Gates. The podcast examines the racial tension that existed in Central LA between Black residents and the cops and between Black and Asian Americans (which was exacerbated when a Korean American convenience store owner named Soon Ja Du fatally shot 16-year-old Latasha Harlins in the back and escaped jail time).

The Slow Burn team—headed by host Joel Anderson—tracked down Los Angelenos who participated in the violence, and they tell us what propelled them in those days of rage. One of the saddest of many sad elements of the eight-episode series is the tale of what transpired following the riots. Promises were made to rebuild and revive the damaged and impoverished sections of the city, but once the headlines faded away...well, you know what happened. And, of course, King, who never fully recovered from the beating, never found peace. He won a financial settlement from the city but then spent years squabbling with his lawyers. He struggled with addiction and was arrested multiple times. He ended up dying in his pool—an accidental drowning likely linked to alcohol and drug use. Of course, the podcast cannot escape the obvious message: The more things change... Slow Burn’s detailed and gripping dive into police violence of the past is a tragic reminder of lessons that have long gone unlearned.

Read Recent Issues of This Land

January 8, 2022: It’s time for Merrick Garland to reveal if the Justice Department is investigating Donald Trump; Dumbass Comment of the Week; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

January 4, 2022: The lesson of January 6: Tragedy does not yield national unity; Ayman Mohyeldin’s impressive American Radical podcast; and more.

December 23, 2021: Farewell to a stupid year; Dumbass Comment of the Year; Mailbag, MoxieCam™; and more.

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December 7, 2021: John Lennon and the NRA—four decades later; Chris Christie: Trump is afraid to lose in 2024; an inspiring documentary about Jacques Cousteau; and more.

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