Simple question for the #Impeachment defense: what do you think Trump's purpose was in calling his followers to DC and rallying them on 1/6?

What kind of speech occasion do you think 1/6 was, exactly? The election was over, it wasn't a campaign rally.

It wasn't a victory speech. Nor was it a concession speech.

It wasn't an epideictic speech, a communal celebration speech.

It wasn't a deliberative speech, advocating a policy.

It wasn't a forensic speech, seeking to find out the truth about an accusation.

No, it was none of these kinds of speech occasions. If we compare the speech to others of it's kind, we'll see that it most closely resembled a war speech. It was a battlefield speech, a call to arms.

I explain in detail why it is reasonable to understand Trump's 1/6 speech as war rhetoric here: https://twitter.com/jenmercieca/status/1349051561578795008

Trump's lawyers showed occasions where Dems used similar sounding rhetorical strategies, but that parallel case doesn't work. None of those examples occurred in a similar speech context. None of those words were spoken on a battlefield, inciting an army to war.

Trump called them "warriors." Trump called his warriors to DC to fight. Trump then told his warriors to march to fight at the Capitol. And they did.

The most apt parallel case is to compare Trump's speech to war rhetoric. Is war rhetoric used against a branch of the federal government, with the goal to subvert the democratic process "impeachable"? Yes. Is it "protected speech"? No.

Trump's "disdain" for violence.