The people on the other side of the pond are noticing what’s happening to Donald Trump.
Today, the BBC published an article detailing a high-stakes trial that seems straight out of an American blockbuster. It is filled with sensational details and features a former president as the defendant.
The BBC reports that there’s hardly a more circus-like courtroom scenario imaginable, with Donald Trump, one of the world’s most powerful people and now a candidate facing allegations of an awkward sexual encounter with a porn actress.
They boil down the ongoing proceedings as the “weakest criminal case” for a booking-keeping offense.
https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/1794595927702852039?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The BBC reports,
We can add to all that the widely held view that the Manhattan trial is by far the weakest of the four criminal cases Donald Trump faces.
It is built on a bookkeeping offence – the alleged falsification of reimbursements to Michael Cohen – the man who paid off Stormy Daniels – as legal fees rather than as hush-money payments.
The case relies on what would ordinarily be a misdemeanour being elevated to the more serious category of felony because of the alleged attempt to improperly influence an election.
The BBC noted that most Americans have reported feeling “bored” or “angry” rather than interested in the trial. Polls conducted during the proceedings show similar trends. With the jury’s verdict approaching, pundits and pollsters who initially expected a major national moment in Manhattan’s criminal courtroom now believe the outcome, whichever way it goes, might be more of a letdown than a dramatic conclusion.
And yet, despite the weeks of testimony, the millions of pages of documents, and the ranks of live TV cameras assembled outside to record the history-making spectacle of the first criminal trial of a former US leader, the American public appears strangely detached.
In a recent YouGov/Yahoo News poll, just 16% of respondents said they’d been following the trial “very closely”, with even those who said they were taking a mild interest in proceedings coming in at only a third of those surveyed.
More Americans said the trial made them feel “bored” or “angry” than interested. Other polls taken during the trial to gauge attention being paid have found similar results.
At the end of their report asking whether Americans are watching the Trump trial, the BBC points out that the efforts to “get Trump” may be falling flat because the general public isn’t as “prudish” as detractors of Trump are hoping for.
There are some who see the public’s seeming indifference to the case as not as surprising as it may appear.
Firstly, Donald Trump is already a known quantity with a long history of courting outrage. Infamy is part of the brand and perceptions of whether he has committed wrongdoing divide on sharply political lines.
And secondly, the American voter is far less prudish than many assume, a point brought home by another sexual scandal from a different political age.
It’s a good sign when the BBC is noticing the charges against Trump are ridiculous.
via thegatewaypundit