On Monday, a video of Representative Jamie Raskin (Democrat, Maryland) was uncovered in which he apparently threatens civil war if Donald Trump wins the election.
Raskin was speaking at a discussion on voter rights hosted by a left-wing professor when he made the controversial comments, including a promise to disqualify Trump on January 6, 2025, under the 14th Amendment. The idea was first hinted at in February by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), who later backtracked, claiming she had omitted significant context in her original statement.
SEE: Article reveals some Democrats are considering not certifying a Trump victory
Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled against the state of Colorado’s attempt to disqualify Trump from the ballot by invoking the 14th Amendment. That put the ball in Congress’s court, whose policy states that only legislation based on the 14th Amendment can essentially “convict” the former president (in a political sense) of insurrection.
This is the scenario Raskin seems to be referring to. Here is the video in question.
Even if voters clearly elect Donald Trump president, no matter by what margin, and even if the election is widely recognized as free and fair, leading Democrats are calling on Congress to block certification of the results and prepare for civil war. pic.twitter.com/U9QL5FZW10
— Lee Zeldin (@leezeldin) 5 August 2024
RASKIN: What can be put into the Constitution can slip away very quickly. The best example of this, which is currently playing out before our eyes, is Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is being magically made to disappear as if it did not exist, even though its content could not be clearer.
So they want to send it to Congress so that on January 6, 2025, it’s up to us to explain to the rioting Trump mob that he’s disqualified. Then we need bodyguards for everyone and civil conditions. And all of this is because the nine justices, not all of them, these justices who don’t hear many cases a year, don’t have that much to do, have huge staffs and are under a lot of protection, just don’t want to do their job and interpret what the great 14th Amendment means.
This is one of the craziest things I have ever heard a politician say out noisy, but the first question is whether it is true. I found the apparent original source, namely a YouTube post on February 19, two days after the discussion shown in the video. This higher resolution clip shows that the lip sync is absolutely perfect, which would normally be a sign of a deep phony. What is said at the end of the clip, namely thanking someone for their foundation, also suggests that this was not faked. That’s not the kind of detail you would think of if this was scripted and produced with AI. Several Republican members of Congress, including Chip Roy, have also commented on this.
Unless proven otherwise, I’m going to assume this is real, because all the evidence points to it. With that in mind, what Raskin is suggesting is objectively insane, and the self-righteousness with which he proclaims it is even more so. He seems completely convinced that if he and other Democrats overturned an election based on their own political whims, he would be the good guy. He calls Trump supporters “rioting mobs,” even though they represent the side that won the choice in his hypothesis.
His claim that we need bodyguards because a civil war is about to break out is also incredibly disturbing. It’s not something you just say. Did Raskin have no idea what he was saying? I suspect he had no idea and his hatred of Trump led him to such delusions. For all our sakes, I hope that’s exactly what he says.
