He noted that democracy-government of, by, and for the people-is the exception on this planet, and always has been. It was to the Constitution that Raskin returned, via the Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of Independence, in his closing remarks on Thursday. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.” Later that year, Raskin was elected to the Maryland State Senate, where he worked to legalize same-sex marriage and marijuana. Before this week, his most famous public remark came in 2006, when, during a debate about gay rights, he reminded a Republican state senator that “when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. Granola Park, Berkeley East), served as general counsel to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition. Jamie Raskin, a former law professor and resident of Maryland’s Takoma Park (a.k.a. Marcus Raskin later chaired the group that led the nuclear-freeze campaign. When Daniel Ellsberg stole the Pentagon Papers, he handed them to Raskin père. Spock and William Sloane Coffin, for urging resistance to the draft. Marcus was a stalwart of the antiwar movement-he co-edited “The Vietnam Reader,” which was used at teach-ins across the nation, and he stood trial, alongside Dr. Raskin grew up in the left-his father, Marcus, after a few early years in the Kennedy Administration, quit to set up, with Richard Barnet, the most important progressive think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies. Although constantly accused of undermining American pride, of debasing American history, progressives are, in fact, the ones who actually understand the nation’s story. That it was left to the left-because Raskin is very much a man of the left-to make that case is telling. But his speech on Thursday was even more important: it was, I think, a classic defense of American history, even of the exceptionalism of American history.
Raskin had opened the arguments on Tuesday with a personal, passionate speech that described his family members hiding from the rioters in the Capitol on January 6th it was as powerful and effective as the speech he gave on that long-ago Cambridge night. I thought of that moment on Thursday, as I listened to Raskin, now the Democratic representative from Maryland’s Eighth Congressional District, close out the prosecution presentation in Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial. He’d given a burning, powerful speech the crowd of students, not an easy audience, had roared and roared. I was a reporter for the Crimson, the student daily he was an undergrad organizing against the Reagan Administration’s involvement in Central America, and had just pulled off an enormous rally in Harvard Yard. The first time I remember meeting Jamie Raskin it was dark, and we were standing atop the great steps of Harvard’s Widener Library, looking out over a sea of candles.
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