[TheOperator]

How would one prove that Trump knew they would do this? The vast majority of "reasonable persons" sure didn't expect this to happen despite hearing Trumps rhetoric around this. Most people were completely shocked.

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.

[asiando]

He did get blamed, but it doesn’t sound like it will hold on court or even for an impeachment.

But then again IANAL.

[KSteffensen]

Impeachment process is 100% political. It doesn't have anything to do with legalities and so no lawyer knowledge is needed.

[teorema]

I think one big unspoken assumption in a lot of this discussion is that claims to something like the Dems actually rigging and stealing the election would reasonably lead to physical resistance. For instance, if the Dems actually were stealing the election, many people would probably sympathize with the rioters. The assumption is that this isn't true, but it's something that does warrant physical resistance, therefore claims to it at a certain level are the same as incitement to violence. There's also the implicit assumption that the president needs to exercise special care because of his power.

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.

[arp242]

There were more or less similar attacks on some state capitols in the weeks before this, too. Besides, as you mention if your rhetoric is that "Democrats are stealing the election and want to destroy this country" then ... what do you expect people to do? Sit peacefully at home going "oh shucks, that's too bad, what else is on TV?" Never mind that rhetoric on various social media posting has quite literally been saying they will do something like this for years. I used to keep a list of these kind of things; but I got bored of it and I'm not sure if I still have it (but there are various reddit subs that are a good start).

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.