Jamie Raskin prosecutes the case against Trump's MAGA allies with humor

CHICAGO — During his first campaign for public office in 2006, when he ousted a 32-year state senator in the Democratic primary, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-8th) called his scores of youthful volunteers “the democracy corps.”

That loose amalgamation of youthful energy has morphed through the years into the Democracy Summer, a robust program sponsored by Raskin and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that dispatches young people across the country to work for progressive candidates and causes.

But “Democracy Summer” could also describe part of the campaign Democrats are waging against former President Donald Trump and his political allies.

And Raskin has been right in the thick of it.

Already he’s been on the road to two dozen states this election cycle, campaigning for — and sometimes against — various candidates. He’s been moving frenetically throughout Chicago during the Democratic National Convention this week, speaking to several groups. And on Monday evening, he became the first of three high-profile Maryland political leaders to speak on the convention floor in prime time (Gov. Wes Moore and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks were the others).

All the while he’s been delivering good-humored zingers at his political foes that also expose the severity of the challenges facing the U.S.

Raskin’s floor speech was keyed to his experience as a constitutional scholar — and his roles as the impeachment manager of Trump’s second trial and as a key member of the special House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Much of his speech focused on that terrifying day — though he began it by saying, “Hello, America! Welcome to democracy convention!”

He went on to prosecute the case against Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio).

“Make no mistake, a man who uses fraud, theft and violence to take power will commit any crime to keep it,” Raskin told the delegates. “We’re going to defeat Donald Trump, the career criminal and incorrigible recidivist con man and his pet chameleon, JD Vance.”

But the convention speech was just part of Raskin’s agenda this week.

According to a schedule provided by the congressman’s campaign office, Raskin has spoken to eight state delegations, including Maryland — almost as many as Moore. He spoke at a meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s Interfaith Council and at a meeting of the DNC’s Climate Crisis Council. And he hosted one of the Maryland delegation’s late-night after-parties, at Harry Caray’s Tavern on Chicago’s Navy Pier — a celebration that seemed very much in Raskin’s image.

There, he hosted a reunion of some members of the indie band The Dispatch, which thrilled some members of the Maryland convention delegation.

“My favorite band,” said the party chair, Ken Ulman.

“The soundtrack to my college years,” said Frederick County Executive Jessica Fitzwater (D).

There, the band played some songs from a rock opera that Dispatch leader Chad Stokes has written called “1972,” which follows a young woman who is attempting to obtain an illegal abortion and features some of the characters she meets along the way.

Raskin advised the schmoozing politicos to go outside if they didn’t want to listen to the music. But first, he introduced the crowd to Harry Dunn, the former U.S. Capitol Police officer whom Raskin credited with saving his life, and to Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and fixer, whom Raskin called “a born-again patriot.”

‘Everyone has their own Sugar Daddy’

At midday Thursday, a large room in a makeshift space in downtown Chicago known as the Democracy House was like an MSNBC junkie’s dream. Assembled there to discuss the prospects for reforming the Supreme Court were Melissa Murray, a New York University law professor and MSNBC commentator; Elie Mystal, the justice reporter for The Nation magazine, who can summon outrage the way most people breathe; Michael Waldman, the director of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School, who has written a book about the court; Adrianne Shropshire, the director of Black PAC, an organization that mobilizes Black voters; U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; and Raskin.

For the congressman, shining a spotlight on the Supreme Court is part of his crusade to save democracy.

“There’s a fantastic ethics crisis taking place on the court,” Raskin told the crowd.

When Murray referred to the court as “a millionaire emotional support group,” Raskin chimed in, “Everyone [on the court] has their own Sugar Daddy … The nation’s highest court has the lowest ethics. Anyone in Congress would be in jail” if they accepted favors from rich benefactors the way Raskin said some justices do.

Whitehouse suggested something sinister has been afoot at the high court for years, but that it only began to come into focus after justices voted to repeal Roe v. Wade in 2022.

“You cannot explain this court with the term conservative,” he said. “That is the wrong term to use. You have to use the term covert operation. Or regulatory capture.”

Mystal called Leonard Leo, who as head of the Federalist Society promoted conservatives for federal judgeships, “a groomer.”

“People like [Justices] Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, they were not born, they were made in a lab by Leonard Leo,” he said.

Shropshire said that Black voters have become increasingly alarmed about the direction of the Supreme Court since justices began chipping away at voting rights laws. When Black voters are asked by pollsters what they fear most, the Supreme Court comes in second, behind Trump’s reelection.

“I think all of us have to fall out of love with the Supreme Court of the United States,” Raskin said. “That doesn’t mean fall out of love with the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.”

Raskin lamented that he was planning to speak more about the Supreme Court during his convention address, but joked that he was asked by convention organizers to cut his 5,000-word speech down by 4,550 words. Still, he said, he was proud to use the term “Kangaroo Supreme Court of the United States” on the convention floor.

“I just want to note, this [conversation] is unusually spicy,” Murray said at one point.

‘Mustard that agrees with your Constitution’

Also spicy are the jars of mustard that Raskin has been handing out during convention week, “Jamie’s Strong & Sweet Democracy Mustard,” which features the slogan “Mustard that agrees with your Constitution” on its label.

The mustard was produced by Raskin’s cousins, who operate the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin.

The jars went especially quickly when Raskin addressed the Maryland convention delegation Thursday morning, zinging insults at Trump and Republicans to the great joy of his audience. Noting Vance’s conversion from anti-Trumper in 2016 to Trump’s running mate in 2024, he said, “Everybody’s waiting for the big debate between our amazing nominee, Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump. I’m waiting for the debate between J,D. Vance and J.D. Vance.”

Raskin also said that in response to Republicans’ insistence on referring to Democrats as “The Democrat Party,” he has taken to calling Republicans “Banana Republicans.” When he informed his wife that he had “finally gotten back at them,” she observed, “That was an extremely immature response.”

But he’s still using the line, and there’s no rest for the weary: Raskin next takes his act on the road this weekend to Saranac Lake, N.Y., in the Adirondack Mountains — not exactly a hotbed of progressive politics — where he’ll be raising money for his own campaign and for Democracy Summer.

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org. Follow Maryland Matters on Facebook and X.