So impeachment is not going well.
First, we have this: viewership is lousy. The trial is drawing only 10.6 million viewers. That's pathetic. That only 3.2% of the US population. Heck, it's only 21% of the audience that watched any NFL game last weekend. Even more telling, it's two million fewer viewers than the number who watched the impeachment hearings. Considering that this is supposed to be the climax of this whole charade, that's bad for the Democrats that the numbers not only fell but fell by 17%.
Also bad for the Democrats is the performance of their team. While the leftist media has been pro forma fawning over them as oral geniuses and giving soothing assurances that this matter is already beyond proven, the Dems have in fact been rather unsuccessful. Note the lack of soundbites, the lack of "we have a dream" or "a date which shall live in infamy" unforgettable quotes -- heck, there hasn't even been a zinger that is making the rounds. Nothing memorable has happened. The media hasn't even tried to pretend something memorable occurred.
Even worse, they've pissed off the moderate GOP Senators so much that Susan Collins called out "not true" during Schiff's closing statement against Senate rules and the others groused to the media afterward that his allegations that they were being pressured not to convict were "insulting and demeaning." Every single moderate GOP Senator complained. Without them, this thing is dead on arrival. I guess no one told poor Adam that it's not a good idea to rely on a media report from an anonymous source of anti-Trump behavior, as it seems that almost all of those are wishful thinking. But that's the problem with living in a bubble world of lies and make believe... you start to believe your own fantasies.
Another impeachment manager stepped in it when he claimed that a vote against allowing witnesses would make senators "complicit in a cover-up." No, maybe the House should have done its job and called those witnesses itself? Accusing Senators of not fixing your own failure is a mistake, and again, the Democrats paid for it. When the Democrats raise the ire of GOP moderates, you know they've blown it.
Either way, this sounds like all she wrote for impeachment. Not that it was ever going to happen, but it seems the Democrats couldn't even make a good show of it. There has been no drama, no historical moments, and nothing to sway anyone. If you wanted Trump impeached before he was even elected, then you still do. If you aren't obsessed about Trump and you realize that the charges they have brought, even if true, are politics as usual and are just a pretext to bring impeachment, then you don't care. There aren't even any genuinely breathless articles about the end of the world even from the left or dramatic covers on liberal magazines showing a side-by-side of Trump with Richard "Our First Obsession" Nixon.
In fact, about as strong as it gets is speculation that the GOP might lose the Senate over this "because polls show that 51% of the public want Trump removed from office." Yeah, right. First of all, connecting that to turning out senators is a stretch -- one does not relate to the other. Secondly, that 51% has existed even as Trump won election, showing something to be wrong with the polls. How does a man whose support is 43% consistently win a national election if the polls are right? Third, popular vote doesn't matter because the Democrats lose so many millions of votes in California and New York, places that already vote straight Democratic. So I wouldn't worry about the Senate.
In the end, this is all just theater... sad, sad, poor written theater.
Thoughts? Are any of you watching?
First, we have this: viewership is lousy. The trial is drawing only 10.6 million viewers. That's pathetic. That only 3.2% of the US population. Heck, it's only 21% of the audience that watched any NFL game last weekend. Even more telling, it's two million fewer viewers than the number who watched the impeachment hearings. Considering that this is supposed to be the climax of this whole charade, that's bad for the Democrats that the numbers not only fell but fell by 17%.
Also bad for the Democrats is the performance of their team. While the leftist media has been pro forma fawning over them as oral geniuses and giving soothing assurances that this matter is already beyond proven, the Dems have in fact been rather unsuccessful. Note the lack of soundbites, the lack of "we have a dream" or "a date which shall live in infamy" unforgettable quotes -- heck, there hasn't even been a zinger that is making the rounds. Nothing memorable has happened. The media hasn't even tried to pretend something memorable occurred.
Even worse, they've pissed off the moderate GOP Senators so much that Susan Collins called out "not true" during Schiff's closing statement against Senate rules and the others groused to the media afterward that his allegations that they were being pressured not to convict were "insulting and demeaning." Every single moderate GOP Senator complained. Without them, this thing is dead on arrival. I guess no one told poor Adam that it's not a good idea to rely on a media report from an anonymous source of anti-Trump behavior, as it seems that almost all of those are wishful thinking. But that's the problem with living in a bubble world of lies and make believe... you start to believe your own fantasies.
Another impeachment manager stepped in it when he claimed that a vote against allowing witnesses would make senators "complicit in a cover-up." No, maybe the House should have done its job and called those witnesses itself? Accusing Senators of not fixing your own failure is a mistake, and again, the Democrats paid for it. When the Democrats raise the ire of GOP moderates, you know they've blown it.
Either way, this sounds like all she wrote for impeachment. Not that it was ever going to happen, but it seems the Democrats couldn't even make a good show of it. There has been no drama, no historical moments, and nothing to sway anyone. If you wanted Trump impeached before he was even elected, then you still do. If you aren't obsessed about Trump and you realize that the charges they have brought, even if true, are politics as usual and are just a pretext to bring impeachment, then you don't care. There aren't even any genuinely breathless articles about the end of the world even from the left or dramatic covers on liberal magazines showing a side-by-side of Trump with Richard "Our First Obsession" Nixon.
In fact, about as strong as it gets is speculation that the GOP might lose the Senate over this "because polls show that 51% of the public want Trump removed from office." Yeah, right. First of all, connecting that to turning out senators is a stretch -- one does not relate to the other. Secondly, that 51% has existed even as Trump won election, showing something to be wrong with the polls. How does a man whose support is 43% consistently win a national election if the polls are right? Third, popular vote doesn't matter because the Democrats lose so many millions of votes in California and New York, places that already vote straight Democratic. So I wouldn't worry about the Senate.
In the end, this is all just theater... sad, sad, poor written theater.
Thoughts? Are any of you watching?
Not watching. No point though it might be mildly amusing to watch the parties say the opposite of what they said during the Clinton impeachment.
ReplyDeleteOf course times have changed a bit and we don't seem to be seeing the intense interest/rally round the flag effect we saw during the Clinton impeachment. Instead its just another day of Trump being Trump (he was famous for being a sybaritic, self dealing populist and he has governed as one).
Like Obama but moreso quite a few of Trump's problems are generated by his mouth but like Obama he won office with said mouth so nobody can convince him or his cult that lack of discipline is hurting him a little (probably not enough to cost him reelection) and the wider party a lot.
A lot is going to happen between now and November and a lot of relevant variables (such as who is running for what seat) haven't yet been established so the crystal ball is still cloudy.
It's worth noting Bernie is surging in polls and Biden is lurching left (promising to fire DHS agents who report illegal immigrant drink drivers) so I think like in 2016 on a presidential level the least weak candidate will win.
ReplyDeleteKobe Bryant has died. I hope the find out where Shaq was during all of this. ;) What? Too soon?
ReplyDeleteAnthony, I don't agree that Obama's mouth was really the problem for him. I think the problem was ultimately laziness. He wanted to be seen as great but had no ideas on how to do that so he told Congress, "go make me famous" and then he shifted the blame for them for everything that went wrong. The end result was a rudderless, narcissistic White House and Democratic overreach... all from a man who sold himself as a different kind of Democrat.
ReplyDeleteNine killed in that helicopter crash. Rough stuff. My prayers are with the families.
ReplyDeleteKobe was a rich, healthy dude who seemed to stay away from the drugs so his death is really out of left field. I'm not a basketball fan myself but he was a pop culture institution.
All the talk about GOP complicity just signals that Democrats want a fair trial that removes Trump.
ReplyDeleteAs I see it, the bad numbers plus the huge drop in viewership tells me that the only people watching besides hardcore political junkies are their own people. They tuned in to the hearings because they were guaranteed a win. ("He'll always have an asterisk by his name, an indelible blemish, ha ha! That reminds me, I should send a donation to the Clinton Foundation.") They're tuning out of the trial because they've been guaranteed a loss.
The worst part of the Democrats presentation is that it's about 30 minutes long, so they put it on a loop for 24 hours. I've never been party to a trial, but that seems like a huge mistake to me. I'll be interested to see if the defense uses all their time, or if they hand back what they don't need.
Schiff's apparent instinct for feeding false reports to the press in hopes of making them come true seems more like a learned behavior.
Another mistake Democrats are making, this in the arena of public opinion, is to accuse GOP Senators of lacking a spine if they don't remove Trump. To Republicans and right-leaning independents on the ground, this is laughable. For decades, GOP politicians who side with Democrats have been called spineless by their own voters. For Dems to cry that not siding with them is spineless can only be whiny excuse-making to their own base.
I tried tuning in to parts of the trial, but every time I do, I just hear House Managers repeating or replaying stuff I've already heard dozens of times. Truly pointless.
So, given how the Washington leak ecosystem has been outed, I think cynicism is the rule of the day. Today I hear that none of the Big 3 are covering the Trump defense opening statements, whereas they had covered the prosecution's statements until they became too dull to report. One wonders if that was the idea, to be so boring as to turn off viewers in order to provide an excuse not to cover proceedings once the defense took over?
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