US Politics

For Jamie Raskin, the Democratic congressman and constitutional law professor who is leading the push to impeach Donald Trump for a second time, the last fortnight has been tumultuous.He lost his son 25-year-old son, Tommy, who had struggled with depression, on New Year’s Eve.Seeing it as his duty, Raskin attended last week’s certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory in Congress with members of his family, from whom he was separated as a mob of pro-Trump extremists stormed the Capitol building.Despite these profound emotional shocks, Raskin has spent the last week drafting the article of impeachment against Trump over his role in inciting the storming of Congress, which is likely to be voted on by the House of Representatives later on Wednesday.The day before the storming of the Capitol, Raskin had buried his son, who died after leaving his family a note. “Please forgive me,” he had written. “My illness won today. Please look after each other, the animals, and the global poor for me. All my love, Tommy.”As he stood to speak in the debate on the certification less than 24 hours later, Raskin – who had pinned a piece of black cloth to his lapel – received a standing ovation from fellow members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, who were aware of his recent loss and that he had still come to vote.Not long afterwards, the Trumpist mob broke in.Since then, Raskin has authored the House resolution that called on the vice-president, Mike Pence, to invoke the 25th amendment and declare Trump unable to complete his term, which expires next week. Pence ruled out doing that Tuesday night.The chamber quickly moved to the article of impeachment, which Raskin also helped draft. He has been clear about why he has needed to push through the difficult emotions he and his family have been confronting to hold Trump to account.“The president is a lethal danger to the American republic and the American people,” Raskin told the Atlantic magazine last week as he began drawing up the article of impeachment. “There has been nothing like this since the civil war.”And as Raskin told the Washington Post, he felt his son’s presence throughout the recent events. “I felt him in my heart and in my chest,” he said. “All the way through the counting of the electoral college votes and through the nightmare of the armed attack on the Capitol.”His son, a law student, as Raskin explained to the paper, had once asked him a question that had focused his mind.For a class about the first amendment issue of freedom of speech, Tommy Raskin had asked his father about “incitement to imminent lawless action”, and whether a government official who had sworn an oath to uphold the constitution should be held to a higher standard.“That ironically is going to be the critical issue for us talking about Donald Trump,” said Raskin. “Some people are saying: ‘Well, Donald Trump was just exercising his free speech.’ As president of the United States, he cannot be encouraging, counselling and inciting mobs that go and attack the Capitol of the United States.”Raskin is clear about what the US is confronting in the aftermath of the assault on Congress.“The president didn’t want to let go, and the fruit of his obsession with his big lie that he had actually won the election was this nightmarish assault on Congress,” Raskin said. “The president has become a clear and present danger to the republic.”“That is the groundwork for fascism, when you add racism, antisemitism, conspiracy theory and magical thinking. That is an absolute powder keg in terms of an assault on democracy,” Raskin said of the riot in an interview. “So we have to be very tough, and very strong right now in defending the constitution and democracy.”During the storming of Congress, Raskin’s thoughts were mostly on his 23-year-old daughter, Tabitha, and his son-in-law, who had accompanied him to the Capitol and were separated in the mayhem.When they were eventually reunited, Raskin assured his daughter that the next time she went to the Capitol, it would be calmer. “Dad, I don’t think there’s gonna be a next time,” she replied.Associated Press contributed to this reportIn the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or by emailing [email protected] or [email protected]. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org. More

Among the various forms of violence on display during the U.S. Capitol insurrection, one has been largely overlooked: misogyny, or hatred toward women. Yet behaviors and symbols of white male power were striking and persistent features of the riots.
Members of the overwhelmingly male crowds defending a president well-known for his sexist attacks, embraced male supremacist ideologies, wore military gear and bared their chests in shows of masculine bravado. They even destroyed display cabinets holding historical books on women in politics.
Actions targeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi give the clearest illustration. Members of the mob broke into her office and vandalized it. Items like mail, signs and even her lectern proved to be particularly popular trophies – symbolizing an attack on Democrats and the House Speaker, but also against one of the most powerful women in American politics.
Richard Barnett sits at a desk inside Nancy Pelosi’s office holding a piece of mail labeled with her name and sticking his tongue out. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
‘Nancy, Bigo was here you bitch’
While partisan differences often drive political violence, misogyny can play an underappreciated role, especially when directed at women in prominent leadership positions. Misogyny punishes women who fail to live up to patriarchal standards, like those who dare to participate in the supposedly “male world” of politics.

In my new book, “Violence against Women in Politics,” I illustrate what this problem looks like around the world. In addition to physical harm, such violence can include threats, property damage and sexist rhetoric and imagery intended to intimidate women and delegitimize their political participation.
Attacks on Pelosi, while partisan in nature, also contained many elements of misogyny.
Pelosi was in physical danger as pro-Trump rioters roamed the Capitol building hunting down elected officials. News cameras filmed a man carrying zip-tie handcuffs entering and then exiting the speaker’s office, where members of her staff remained barricaded in a room for more than two hours.
Acts of vandalism and theft were accompanied by speech disparaging and belittling Pelosi as a woman. In the hallway outside her suite of offices, angry rioters tore the leadership nameplate off the wall as crowds chanted, “Get her out!”
Pro-Trump protesters fill the U.S. Capitol building, many of them wearing military gear. Win McNamee/Getty Images News via Getty Images
In a video, a woman claimed she helped break down the door to Pelosi’s office. Once inside, “somebody stole her gavel and I took a picture sitting in the chair flipping off the camera.” She proudly announced “and that was for Fox News” – a station notorious not just for its far-right politics, but also for its on- and off-camera sexism.
A photo of Richard “Bigo” Barnett, sitting with his feet up on a desk in Pelosi’s office, solicited perhaps the strongest reaction. One feminist writer asked, “Have you ever seen a clearer photo of arrogant male entitlement? The legs apart, the foot on the desk, the smile … this guy isn’t just happy he’s broken into the Capitol building. He feels like he’s putting a woman in her place by violating and defiling her space.”
Consistent with this interpretation, Barnett later told a reporter: “I wrote her a nasty note, put my feet up on her desk, and scratched my balls.” The message read: “Nancy, Bigo was here you bitch.”
Another paper left on the desk amplified this message, warning in red ink: “WE WILL NOT BACK DOWN.”
Violent restoration of a retrograde world
Gendered slurs similarly appear in one of the first cases pursued by the FBI stemming from the riot.
Cleveland Meredith was charged with unregistered possession of firearms and unlawful possession of ammunition. FBI agents also discovered misogynistic text messages on his mobile phone threatening violence against Pelosi, like “Thinking about heading over to Pelosi C**T’s speech and putting a bullet in her noggin on live TV,” “I’m gonna run that C**T Pelosi over,” and “Dead Bitch Walking.”
Misogyny in the Capitol attacks indicates that rioters, both male and female, did not simply wage an assault on democratic institutions. They also sought to violently restore a retrograde world in which men, especially white men, hold all the power.
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Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, could be included in a federal investigation and is facing a disbarment complaintProminent lawyers who helped fuel Donald Trump’s baseless charges of election fraud to try and thwart Joe Biden’s win, are now facing potentially serious legal and financial problems of their own tied to their aggressive echoing of Trump’s false election claims, say former Department of Justice lawyers and legal experts.They include a federal investigation into the Capitol attack by a pro-Trump mob, possible disbarment and a defamation lawsuit. Continue reading… More

Nancy Pelosi has accused Donald Trump of associating himself with sedition and treason in a strong statement calling for the removal of the president through impeachment after a failed call for enactment of the 25th amendment.The final vote on Tuesday night was 223 to 205, with only one Republican backing the non-binding resolution that asked Mike Pence, the vice-president, to declare Trump ‘incapable’ under the 25th amendmentStage set for impeachment after Pence dismisses House call to invoke 25th amendment Continue reading… More

Statement says the channel violated policies for inciting violence and that comments underneath videos would also be disabledYouTube has temporarily banned President Donald Trump’s channel from uploading new videos or livestreams after earlier content violated policies for inciting violence, the company said late on Tuesday.The channel cannot upload for a minimum of seven days – which may be extended, and earlier content had been removed, Youtube said in a statement. It did not give details about the video that prompted the move. Continue reading… More

Powerful conservative joins growing number of Republicans seeking accountability for president after Capitol attackLiz Cheney, the third-highest-ranking Republican leader in the House, has said she will vote to impeach the president on Wednesday, as a growing cohort of Republicans back efforts to hold Donald Trump accountable for inciting the attack on the US Capitol last week.In a strongly worded statement released on Tuesday, Cheney, a representative from Wyoming and the daughter of the former vice-president Dick Cheney, said that Trump had “summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack”. Continue reading… More

Words have consequences. And decades of research supports the contention that Donald Trump’s words could in fact incite people to mount an insurrection at the US Capitol. More