But given the context of everything, did he incite violence? You’re saying I’m misinterpreting Trump. Given the situation he’s set up, is it a surprise at all that many others might have interpreted what he said in the same way?
If a BLM organizer says “lets go out there and protest peacefully” and then follows up with “but you know that Footlocker on Main and 34th? We definitely shouldn’t burn the place down. But you know, the owners of that place are awful people. We need to show strength. They are evil. But don’t burn it down. But really they’re evil”, I’d say that was inciting violence too.
All of this reads to me like very typical motivational bluster that accompanies situations like protests. BLM organizers also use phrasings like "we're going to take back our city" and "show them our power" and so on.
Yeah, that’s incitement.
Regarding the "trial by combat" line - an article on Giulani's speech (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-electio...) describes it like this:
> While baselessly claiming that Democrats won elections because of fraud, Mr Giuliani bellowed to the crowd: “Who hides evidence? Criminals hide evidence, not honest people!”
> He continued: “Over the next ten days, we get to see the machines that are crooked, the ballots that are fraudulent, and if we're wrong, we will be made fools of. But if we're right, a lot of them will go to jail.”
> Mr Giuliani then suddenly yelled: "Let's have trial by combat!" to lacklustre cheers from the crowd.
To me this does not sound like a call to violence. It sounds like a bad joke or poorly-worded bluster or an attempt at hyperbole. Giuliani was quick to condemn the riot at the capitol, for what it's worth (https://twitter.com/RudyGiuliani/status/1347149858000556032).
He also does this with Tweets. Oh that retweet of that white supremecist, just a re-tweet. Doesn’t mean anything. Except there are good people on both sides.
But it does mean something when you are the President and you have a large number of followers.
People have been getting death threats for weeks about the stolen election. The only thing this President has done is continue to amp up the lies and demands of his followers to do something, anything.
The world isn’t a programming language, there’s no state machine and no precise instruction set. It is full of hints and innuendo.
Please interpret Donald Trump in context.
He asked the rioters to “remain peaceful”. As in, by all means, the thing you did to break into the building, that’s OK, but be peaceful. And by the way, the election was stolen from me and I love you.
It was only later, after sustained pressure that Trump told the rioters to leave.
This is like the police after being called to an in-progress home invasion telling the invaders to not break anything while in the house, and by the way we really like you.
Trump talked about marching to the Capitol building and “showing strength” at the rally. His employee, Giuliani, was making comments about hand to hand combat at the rally. Before the rally, he commented that it was going to be a wild day. During the riot, he praised the rioters by referring to them fondly as special people. I don’t think even this rundown does complete justice as to what Trump did.
In the context of a criminal trial, Trump could claim ignorance of what his actions meant. I think that would be a hard sell considering he’s a professional politician and the President of the United States. In the context of an impeachment trial, I don’t think claims of ignorance could hold. Even allowing it, that level of cluelessness and recklessness still qualifies as high crimes and misdemeanors.
Does he have to use rhetoric specifically calling for violence in order to justify the banning? At the rally beforehand he said "we can't let this happen", are you surprised at the outcome?
What the leader of the country says and how they say it matters. He doesn't need to specifically instruct them to overthrow the government... he's been fueling the fire for a long time now suggesting the election was rigged. While it's an obvious lie, because of who he is some people are going to believe him lie or not... remember the people who ingested fish tank cleaner?
I do agree Trump has a huge history of lying, and was continuing to lie with his claims about the election. However, I find the claim that Trump "incited" the riot to be unfounded and am shocked to see everyone use that word so casually. If and when this goes to court, I guarantee they will not be able to prove that Trump incited a violent riot simply because the evidence does not support it.
Remember, there were tens of thousands of attendees in DC in support of Trump, across several separate events. To my knowledge, all these events had applied for permits and were granted them, allowing the city and other agencies (like National Park Service) to plan their response and presence.
At the capitol, a few hundred people came onto the capitol grounds. Of those, an even smaller subset engaged in theft, vandalism, and other violence. But the vast majority of people that came to DC this last week for Trump did not engage in violence. So how can it be claimed that Trump incited violence? He made false claims about the election, and a small number of people took those claims and used it as justification for criminality. But to me that seems like the fault of those who participated and not really a justification for banning Trump.