Well, this POV certainly won’t get buried… /s
Rereading the speech I must agree and I don’t know that this will be enough for Trump to be punished in a court. Would “context” and ““knowing they would do it”” be enough to actually blame him?
Rereading the speech I must agree and I don’t know that this will be enough for Trump to be punished in a court. Would “context” and ““knowing they would do it”” be enough to actually blame him?
I think there is plenty of room for Trump to get blamed here even if we give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he didn't expect this to happen. He was droning on about how the election was stolen from him on twitter as people were dying. He riled people up over his horsecrap sore loser claims and people died as a result.
But then again IANAL.
Was I shocked? Yeah, but not because it was surprising. While the specific date and details of the incident are always hard to predict, even a casual observer could see that something like this was bound to happen from miles away. In some ways I'm relieved because I expected it to be far more deadly (which may still happen).
Can we prove that Trump knew what he was inciting this in a court? Probably not. I'm not sure if it really matters as such, depending on what happens with Trump in the coming weeks/months/years.
Like a lot of these sorts of things, the issues are complex, and I think a lot could come to light in coming days that might change perspective on exactly what Trump did and didn't do. But I think some care is needed in being explicit about what's being claimed. I think political biases are bleeding into claims of violence-inciting speech more than people realize. I personally don't think claiming election fraud is impeachable, even if it is followed by events such as happened at the capitol, but I do think, say, coercion of a public official might be, as would willfully neglecting to institute expected security protocols at an event known to be high risk.
You can’t just hide behind “technically I didn’t say kill” as a mob boss telling a hit man you flew across the country to “take care” of someone.
Not just that, but trumps actions once it became known the demonstration had turned into an attack will also enter into he record and his part in police being underprepared.
There is a lot more to this than just the litteral words of his speach.