Congressman Jamie Raskin for Unthinkable

In this searing memoir, Congressman and Takoma Park resident Jamie Raskin tells the story of the forty-five days at the start of 2021 that permanently changed his life—and his family’s—as he confronted the painful loss of his son to suicide, lived through the violent failed insurrection and attack on the Capitol, and led the impeachment effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for inciting the political violence

“Extraordinary . . . [an] astonishing story of tragedy and redemption. . . . May this book and Tommy’s example inspire us all to rescue our gravely beleaguered democracy.”—Guardian

On December 31, 2020, Tommy Raskin, the only son of Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin, tragically took his own life. Seven days later, on January 6, 2021, Congressman Raskin returned to the House to help certify the 2020 presidential election results, when violent insurrectionists led by right-wing extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol. As a reeling nation mourned the loss of life and lamented the injuries of more than 140 police officers in the attack, Congressman Raskin, a constitutional law professor, was called upon to channel his overwhelming grief—both personal and professional—into leading the second impeachment effort against President Trump.

In Unthinkable, Congressman Raskin discusses this unimaginable convergence of personal and public trauma. Going inside the Capitol, he recounts the horror of January 6, a day that he and other Democrats had spent months preparing for under the correct assumption that they would encounter an attempted electoral coup—not against a president but for one. And yet, on January 6, he faced the one thing he had failed to anticipate: mass political violence designed to block Joe Biden’s election. With an inside account of leading the team that prosecuted the outgoing president in the Senate, Congressman Raskin reveals just how close we came to losing our democracy while reckoning with the loss of his brilliant, remarkable son whose values and memory continually inspired the congressman to confront the dark impulses unleashed by Donald Trump.

ASL interpretation provided.