In American political speech, words matter, but context is often everything. This was the argument at the impeachment trial of Donald Trump when House prosecutors and his defense team disagreed on the words he uttered the day of the Capitol siege last month. To prosecutors, the president’s use of the word “fight” meant something real. To Trump’s lawyers, it was another figure of speech in a political landscape that often uses fighting words to mean political battles. Where that line is drawn was the main sticking point to the key question: Did Trump incite the Capitol riot, or would it have happened without him?
