It had all the promise of an only-in-America blockbuster trial, brimming with salacious detail and a former president in the dock.
In fact, it’s hard to imagine a bigger courtroom drama, tailor-made for the media, than one that stars Donald Trump, once the world’s most powerful figure and someone vying to be so again, forced to sit through allegations of an awkward sexual encounter with a porn actress.
A political and legal thriller in which a man – not known for his humility – has had to listen, often with eyes tightly shut, as everything from depictions of his satin pyjamas and comparisons to a “Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain” have entered the court record.
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.
As the jury’s verdict now approaches, for those pundits and pollsters once anticipating that a national moment might be unfolding in lower Manhattan’s criminal courtroom number 1530, there’s now instead a feeling that the outcome – whichever way it goes – may be less of a fulmination and more of a fizzle.
Read more at BBC.com
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