Voting with their eyeballs

FOR METROPOLITAN trendsetters and the masses, the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson was the great event of 1868. The Senate galleries were crammed for it, with “the most lovely as well as the most distinguished ladies of Washington...in daily attendance”, according to one record. Police officers meanwhile struggled to control the crowds that heaved outside the Capitol, “continually asking questions, making appeals and muttering threats”. Entering the Senate this week, by contrast, your columnist spotted a single, lonely protester wearing a sign that read: “Donald Trump is going to pee on you.”

Considering the passions that the president stirs, for and against, most Americans’ lack of interest in his trial may be its most remarkable feature. The public gallery has been half-empty for most of it. The few dozen anti-Trump protesters who have gathered outside the Senate are nothing to the hundreds who flocked to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing. The trial’s opening two days drew a modest prime-time TV audience of 7.5m. That is similar to the audience for Bill Clinton’s trial, once an increase in average viewership is factored in, though Mr Trump’s is taking place in a far more feverishly politicised environment. It is also more popular than Mr Clinton’s trial was. Only a minority of Americans thought Mr Clinton should have been impeached for lying about sex; a small majority think Mr Trump should be sacked for trying to extort personal favours from his Ukrainian counterpart.