{"id":3213,"date":"2023-06-12T09:52:36","date_gmt":"2023-06-12T13:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montgomerymag.com\/?p=3213"},"modified":"2023-06-12T09:52:36","modified_gmt":"2023-06-12T13:52:36","slug":"jamie-raskin-on-grief-and-gratitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montgomerymag.com\/jamie-raskin-on-grief-and-gratitude\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamie Raskin On Grief and Gratitude"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) Photo credit: Anna Moneymaker \/
via Newscom]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even Rep. Jamie Raskin\u2019s fiercest, Donald Trump-defending political opponents wouldn\u2019t begrudge him missing a few days of work amid chemotherapy treatment for lymphoma.<\/p>\n

But the Maryland Democrat, whose House district spans lower Montgomery County from the Potomac River to his home base of Takoma Park, had a perfect attendance record throughout his cancer treatment for House floor votes and as the top Democratic member of the Oversight and Reform Committee. It\u2019s a perch from which Raskin counters attacks against President Joe Biden, reminding the Republican majorities of widespread malfeasance during Trump\u2019s 2017-21 presidency.<\/p>\n

Raskin announced in late April the cancer is in remission, capping a five-month treatment regimen. Where side effects like hair loss saw him emerge as an unlikely political fashion icon due to a bandana that was a gift from Steven Van Zandt, of Bruce Springsteen\u2019s E Street Band and \u201cSopranos\u201d fame.<\/p>\n

The 60-year-old Raskin\u2019s cancer scare was only the latest in a traumatic and searing turn of events in his life over the past two-and-a-half years. Back to the grief around his son Tommy\u2019s suicide on Dec. 31, 2020. Then experiencing first-hand the terrors of Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump\u2019s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a futile effort to keep the defeated president in office. Raskin was an impeachment manager (prosecutor) in the subsequent Senate trial of Trump, and then a leading member of the January 6 committee that probed the coup attempt.<\/p>\n

Throughout it all, Raskin brought indefatigable energy to his public duties. In an interview with Montgomery Magazine, Raskin said that Tommy\u2019s memory and spirit have helped. It\u2019s a cathartic, and ongoing, process that began with the writing of his #1 New York Times bestseller \u201cUnthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose I never felt I had any real choice than to go forward. I felt Tommy with me from the beginning of this dark period,\u201d Raskin said about his beloved late son, a second-year Harvard Law School student and graduate of Montgomery Blair High School and Amherst College.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my book, I date the beginning of the darkness to COVID-19, and the plague conditions in the country, and the response to it,\u201d Raskin said about Tommy, who had long battled depression. \u201cTommy, like many in his generation, was left very isolated and despondent. And everything went south from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The congressman\u2019s memories of Tommy only intensify as Father\u2019s Day approaches, on June 18. Feelings shared by his wife, Sarah Bloom Raskin, who was deputy treasury secretary in former President Barack Obama\u2019s administration and previously a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and their two daughters, Hannah and Tabitha.<\/p>\n

\u201cTommy was someone who always was focused on the group and the community, and other people\u2019s experiences,\u201d Raskin said. \u201cI know that he would be happy to know how involved Sarah and I are in the lives of his sisters, and their significant others.\u201d<\/p>\n

The congressman\u2019s early grief, and later his cancer battle, came amid increasingly visible roles on Capitol Hill, representing a House district to which he was elected in 2016 when 14-year Democratic incumbent Chris Van Hollen won an open Senate seat. Raskin, drawing on his decades as a law professor and public interest litigator on causes like Washington, D.C., statehood, has emerged as a go-to Democratic Trump critic. And more broadly, Trumpism and what he and others call its toxic stew of populist nationalism.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Rep. Jamie Raskin, right, is joined by Maryland Gov. Wes Moore at the Leggett Building Ribbon Cutting in Silver Spring, May 4, 2023. Photo by Maryland GovPics<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Raskin\u2019s Oversight Committee role has been energizing amid some very hard times, he said.\u201cMy bout with lymphoma underscored for me this fight that we\u2019re in, for democratic values and institutions in the country,\u201d Raskin said.<\/p>\n

His committee battles with Republican Chairman James Comer of Kentucky have frequently become televised spectacles. Particularly when it comes to the investigation of President Biden\u2019s at-times wayward son, Hunter Biden. Emblematic of it all, was Comer\u2019s mid-May admission that he apparently lost track of his informant in an investigation into the Biden family.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a wild goose chase that is both madcap and fanciful,\u201d Raskin said. \u201cWe used to stay up late in the night preparing for these hearings. But now we\u2019re getting more sleep because they\u2019re embarrassing themselves on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

That stands in contrast to the sober nature of the January 6 hearings, which ended up making criminal referrals of Trump and others to the Justice Department, Raskin added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe committee was completely bipartisan, with a Democratic chair and a Republican vice chair. It was driven by objective fact-finding,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Despite the partisanship, Raskin said his lymphoma diagnosis had brought out a softer side of even the most ardent Trump-supporting Republicans in Congress. Among them is a fellow cancer survivor, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, who was diagnosed with and beat back Stage 3 Hodgkin lymphoma.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was constantly texting me and checking on me,\u201d Raskin said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all part of his two-and-a-half-year saga that could easily double as a novella. But one, at least on the health front, with a happy ending.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a health journey in which Raskin took solace from writer Susan Sontag\u2019s quote, \u201cIllness is the night side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Civically, though, a grave threat to American democracy still looms in the form of Trump, as the former president is running again in 2024, Raskin said. As that fight continues there won\u2019t be any question about missed workdays.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a new lease on life,\u201d Raskin said. I felt like I had been gone for five months, which is ironic because I\u2019d been present all along.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even Rep. Jamie Raskin\u2019s fiercest, Donald Trump-defending political opponents wouldn\u2019t begrudge him missing a few days of work amid chemotherapy treatment for lymphoma. But the Maryland Democrat, whose House district spans lower Montgomery County from the Potomac River to his home base of Takoma Park, had a perfect attendance record throughout his cancer treatment for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":3228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13,44,61],"tags":[505,506,503,504],"yoast_head":"\nJamie Raskin On Grief and Gratitude - Montgomery Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.montgomerymag.com\/jamie-raskin-on-grief-and-gratitude\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jamie Raskin On Grief and Gratitude - Montgomery Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Even Rep. 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