Trump's Defense

One of the several strategies being promoted to defend Trump’s actions on January 6, is that his words didn’t amount to sedition. What that position fails to consider is the target audience. As any marketer or experienced politician understands, you must know your audience. The exact same words spoken to a group of educated professionals will have a different interpretation when they are uttered to a frenzied mass of people, many of whom are dressed in military attire, and who traveled many miles to follow the direction of their Messiah. With a boisterous crowd yelling for blood, Trump merely gave them direction.

The target audience is the critical point here and debunks any after-action wordsmithing analysis of specific content. When the head of a crime family tells a fellow member that someone will be sleeping with the fishes, we all know that a refreshing nap near an aquarium is not being discussed. No, Donald Trump did not specifically tell the crowd to break into the Capitol, destroy property, and attempt to bring harm to his enemies. He didn’t have to. He spoke to a group that was already shouting what they intended to do, and Trump provided his tacit approval.

 

If this is your audience, what you say to them might inspire a response.

 

If this were a typical trial before a judge, that judge would assess the president’s liability by determining the reasonableness of his actions. Were the events that followed the speeches of the president, his hired attorney, his two sons, and other political figures, a reasonably foreseeable risk? The problem with this impeachment trial is that legal decisions will not be made, only political ones. It will not be a rational consideration of the facts, but more a risk assessment of political careers. As a practical matter this upcoming trial will be an airing of our national dirty laundry. It will be an unpleasant task but a necessary one. The outcome is as foreseeable as the riot that followed the president’s Stop the Steal speech.

That Trump’s words, and those of his minions, actually provided the impetus for the riot should not be the question, but it will surely be raised in his defense. This is not a trial for a federal crime. It is an impeachment based on the “high crimes and misdemeanors'” broad umbrella. This should not be a First Amendment issue of free protected speech, but should be seen as a gross misuse of presidential power in a seditious manner.

 

Remember, the image that accompanies this post, was the target audience. Does this look like a group of rational people who will respond reasonably to the admonition that, "If you don't fight like Hell, you won't have a country anymore?" Anyone who has ever dealt with children knows, you have to be very careful what you say around them.