But it could also be a non total sack of shit and having a norm of “these few thousand hogs are really angry, so the Speaker just had to die” 🤷‍♀️ also seems “pretty bad.”

Seems to me that this is what is going on with Trump, though. A few thousand- well no, a few million ghouls- card-carrying Democrats and Republicans alike- are really angry, so Mr. Former President has to be banned from office and his followers criminalized en masse, one way or another- doesn't matter how they do it.

So, in the end… I guess I don’t care?

I share the sentiment. Mainly I just plan to leave (Canada, not the US). Things are, especially in the US, almost certainly going to shit within the next decade if even that, and honestly? Trump probably isn't going to be the instigator, I also see him as no more of a threat than the "establishment" political bloc/blob, and considering how deranged their foreign policy has proven to be under Biden- I suspect Trump would even be the better candidate to maintain the status quo, reel in the empire a bit, and bring back some sanity in that regard.

But ultimately I don't care. I'm not an accelerationist, but I also can't bring myself to care- "red fascist, blue fascist, orange fascist-" the blue fascists at least are less likely to fuck over minorities and the LGBT community, but then at the same time it seems to me like they're the ones, alongside the red fascists (who are really just the opposite side of the same coin) driving the west rapidly towards outright fascism, domestically and certainly in foreign policy.

Of course this all runs up against reality which is you don’t take over a government by force by occupying its capitol. You don’t even do it by killing all those leaders. The government is run by thousands of faces and names we don’t know and it would continue with or without those elected names in place.

Agreed. Though obviously I don't think Trump tried to do any of that, nor do I think there is any solid case to be made (legally) arguing he did, however people might feel or extrapolate things wildly about it.

I don’t know how much weight is placed behind “intent but lacking the knowledge or ability” vs pure “intent” devoid of context such as knowledge.

I imagine either is damning- if it can be decisively and legitimately proven in court. I'd argue that Trump's actions can't be, and that they didn't have either intent to begin with anyways, and a massive effort is underway to obscure events and muddy the waters to claim otherwise- he said his piece, which was not meaningfully different from Al Gore's contesting results in 2000- and handed over power, sure, he was a "bad sport" and didn't attend the inauguration, but he didn't do anything remotely illegal.