Raskin’s astonishing story of tragedy and redemption, of “despair and survival”, depended entirely on all the “good and compassionate people” like Tommy, “the non-narcissists, the feisty, life-size human beings who hate bullying and fascism naturally – people just the right size for a democracy … where we are all created equal”. “I’m not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021,” he told CNN, less than three weeks after Tommy’s death. He found “salvation and sustenance … a pathway back to the land of the living”. Instead of succumbing to unfathomable grief over the death of his son, Raskin seized a lifeline thrown by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and agreed to lead the effort to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the riot which might have derailed the peaceful transition of power. This is where the superhuman part came in. Never had he felt “so equidistant … between the increasingly unrecognizable place called life and the suddenly intimate and expanding jurisdiction called death”. Raskin suffered “a violent and comprehensive shock to the foundations”.

Six days later, a vicious mob invaded Raskin’s workplace, the cradle of democracy, leaving several dead and injuring 140 police officers. On 31 December, his beautiful, brilliant, charismatic 25-year-old son, Tommy, took his own life. When 2020 began, he had no inkling that just 12 months later his country and his family would face “two impossible traumas”. Jamie Raskin is a fine writer, a Democratic congressman, a constitutional scholar and a deeply loving father.

Tommy raskin death