what trump did not know, and when did he not know it
A quick argument.
Suppose you are a person who thinks the DoD, Capitol police, and Mayor of Washington DC had no way of knowing there would be a riot on the 6th of January. Or perhaps you think they should have, but its not crazy they did not. This describes many people. But nevertheless you are very VERY sure that Donald Trump incited the riot on the capitol. You have seen the impeachment proceedings play clips of Trump talking at his rally, then clips of people rioting and claim on twitter that this is case closed. You think with those clips the connection is obvious. Obvious enough to impeach even! If this is the case I have a very short argument for you, which I am sure you are starving for given the apparently weak showing by the Trump defense not but a day ago.
Donald Trump gave multiple rallies over the span of a month or more, all with the exact content he was to deliver on January 6th. You could have seen him give these rallies and you could have predicted what kinds of things he would say on January 6th. Perhaps during the impeachment hearing you could have played clips from other rallies and no one watching would have even been able to tell! Donald Trump announced ahead of time he would give a rally, at that date, at that time, and that he would walk to the capitol with his supporters. If Trump had actually walked to the capitol with his supporters I think we can all agree it would have made things even more explosive then they already were going to be.
So, to set things straight. You believe from watching a clip of Trump at a rally it is obvious that this is incitement, and you and national security experts in charge of Washington DC had seen such clips, and knew such obvious incitement would take place and at what date and at what time. But for some reason, you did not predict people would attempt or succeed in storming the capitol. And neither did the national security experts you now defer to, nor the very anti Trump mayor of DC who shares your opinions. In fact, they chose to defend the capitol more lightly then they did during Black lives matter protests. They probably expected no riot at all! Apparently they saw clips of the exact speech Trump would give and assumed the people protesting would be as polite as pro life protestors were previously. This was, apparently, obvious.
And now I would like to suggest something you have apparently refused to for a moment consider. Maybe Donald Trump, just like mayor Bowser, did not know a riot would happen on July 6th. What does Donald Trump know that Mayor Bowser, DoD, and Capitol police don’t? Nothing at all. And according to you he is dumber too. Apparently someone dumber then you are was supposed to predict something you were not able to, and this is apparently obvious. Donald Trump, in order to have incited a riot, would have had to have predicted something about his supporters those in charge of the security of Washington DC did not, otherwise he did not know there would be a riot, and in not knowing his actions would be riot adjacent he was not inciting them. If it is obvious now his rallies are incitement, why was it not obvious then? If Trump could predict his supporters would do that, why didn’t Washington DC? Unless you believe Q conspiracy theories that Trump is communicating in secret messages to his supporters there is no reason you could not have predicted as well as Donald Trump did. In fact because he did not walk down with his protestors you should have predicted it to be even worse then it was.
Keep in mind what has been communicated by the approving media what the correct above board conduct is regarding protestors. Violent protestors attempted to burn down the White House. Mitt Romney not only did not condemn the movement for doing so, he said nice things about them and went marching with them. This is the peaceful protest null hypothesis communicated to Trump. Maybe Trump thought as long as there was no fire he too could walk with protestors, and that any violence that happened somewhere else had nothing to do with him. In his mind he is being even nicer and less violent then Mitt Romney, and not only that if anything goes wrong he will actually condemn them the next day. He probably thought the capitol would be defended properly too. Why wouldn’t he? Maybe he saw in anger during the 2016 election multiple congressman refusing to certify the results of his victory and no one getting angry, maybe he thought that was normal. Maybe he saw three years of Russia hysteria, three years of rumors and lies and russian disinformation being spread about him and thought this was apparently normal. Maybe he thought he could do something similar for a few weeks instead of three years.
It seems more likely to me that it is not the case that there is something obvious to Donald Trump about his supporters and about the proper amount of security that is not obvious to everyone else in the country, but there is something obvious to all of us that is not obvious to him. Donald Trump thinks he can behave the same way as everyone else but with bigger crowds and be treated just like any other politician in the equivalent situation, unfortunately he is wrong. And according to his enemies, getting this wrong is an impeachable offense. Donald Trump doesn’t understand why he can’t act like every other politician who has attacked him does, and this is the highest crime and misdemeanor he could possibly commit.