Rep. Jamie Raskin — the man Democrats trot out every time they need someone to sound smart while saying absolutely nothing — went on CNN’s *State of the Union* Sunday and gave us one of the most pathetic performances in recent political television history. Dana Bash asked him a very simple question: does he think twice about the Left’s rhetoric calling Trump terrible for this country, especially after an armed suspect just tried to breach security at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner?
Raskin’s response? “What rhetoric do you have in mind?”
Oh, come ON. What rhetoric? How about ten straight years of “fascist,” “dictator,” “literally Hitler,” “threat to democracy,” “worse than 9/11,” and every other hysterical label your party has slapped on the man since he came down that escalator? Pick one, Jamie. We’ve got a buffet.
This is the guy who led Trump’s second impeachment. The man who sat in that chair in the Senate chamber and argued with a trembling voice that Donald Trump was so dangerous to the republic that he needed to be removed from public life forever. But when Dana Bash — not exactly a right-wing operative — asks him if maybe, just maybe, calling someone a fascist every single day for a decade might inspire some lunatic to show up with a weapon… suddenly he’s got amnesia.
“I have no personal problem with Donald Trump at all,” Raskin said with a straight face.
Sure you don’t, Jamie. You just tried to impeach him, remove him from office, and bar him from ever running again. But yeah — no personal problem. That’s like your ex keying your car, slashing your tires, and then telling the judge, “I wish him nothing but the best.”
Here’s what actually happened at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, for anyone who missed it: a suspect named Cole Allen allegedly entered the Washington Hilton armed and attempted to breach security. Secret Service evacuated President Trump and his entire administration. This wasn’t some random street crime. This was a targeted incident at an event filled with the most powerful people in Washington.
And what does Raskin do when asked about the political climate that might produce something like this? He pivots to policy. He starts talking about “authoritarianism.” He actually had the nerve to say he’s “never called the press the ‘enemy of the people’” — throwing Trump’s old line back at him as if that’s even remotely the same thing as what we’re talking about.
News flash, Congressman: nobody shot at reporters. Someone showed up armed at an event where the President of the United States was sitting. Connect the dots. We’ll wait.
This is the Democratic Party in a nutshell right now. They spent years — YEARS — ratcheting up the most extreme, violent, apocalyptic language imaginable about one man. “He’s going to end democracy.” “He’s a dictator on day one.” “He’ll put people in camps.” They said it on cable news, they said it at rallies, they said it in fundraising emails, they said it in their sleep. And then when someone actually acts on that rhetoric, they all develop sudden-onset selective memory.
“What rhetoric do you have in mind?”
Give us a break.
The party that invented “stochastic terrorism” as a buzzword to blame conservative speech for violence can’t seem to apply the same standard to their own megaphone. Funny how that works. When a Republican uses a metaphor, it’s “incitement.” When Democrats spend an entire decade calling someone Hitler, and then someone shows up with a weapon at his dinner — well, that’s just an isolated incident and we shouldn’t politicize it.
Raskin is supposed to be the smart one. The “constitutional scholar.” The guy who quotes the Federalist Papers and wears his pocket Constitution like a fashion accessory. But put him in front of a camera and ask him the most obvious question in the world — does your side’s language contribute to political violence? — and he turns into a confused substitute teacher who lost the lesson plan.
The answer, by the way, is yes. It’s not complicated. When you tell people for ten years that a political leader is an existential threat to their lives, their freedoms, and their children’s future, some percentage of those people are going to believe you. And some smaller percentage of those people are going to act on it. This isn’t rocket science. This is basic cause and effect.
But Raskin can’t say that. Because saying that would mean admitting that his party built this. That every “threat to democracy” speech, every impeachment circus, every breathless cable news segment about “the end of the republic” poured gasoline on a fire they now pretend doesn’t exist.
So instead we get: “What rhetoric do you have in mind?”
Framing that one. Putting it on the mantel right next to “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” and “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” in the Democratic Hall of Fame for answers that insult your intelligence.
