US impeachment being met with disinterest by many Canadians

All the scandals and all the headlines surrounding the President of the United States over the past two years could be reaching a conclusion soon, after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump on Sept. 24.

This is just the fourth time in the history of the United States that a president has faced impeachment. The first was Andrew Johnson in 1868, then Richard Nixon in 1974, Bill Clinton in 1998 and now Trump.

However, despite the historic context and the potential impacts to Canada and many other parts of the world, many Canadians don’t seem to be very interested in following along with the impeachment proceedings.

“Canadians’ interest in the impeachment story is fascinating in many regards. I think that people are interested in special events, there are people that are also interested in the circus but they can only watch the circus for so long before they get bored and want to change to something else,” said Joe Garcea, political science professor at the University of Saskatchewan.

“I think there is a boredom that’s setting in, a certain amount of fatigue starting to set in especially given that some people are starting to understand that the likelihood of him being impeached is remote unless some of the senators are starting to flip to support the Democrats.”

Garcea compares the impeachment proceedings to a long mystery novel that people already know the ending of.

“Even though you know how it’s going end, you still want to know some of the details. And details might emerge on any given day so some people are willing to tune in,” he said.

“But I just don’t think that people have the attention span or the interest to continue to read something along the lines of a 2,000-page book when a lot of it is just filler and nonsense.”

Michael Gertler, sociology professor at the U of S, agrees with the notion that people are sick of hearing about Trump and said the Republicans have had a “very well-orchestrated campaign” to get people to be disinterested.

“There’s a long history of people who get power and stay in power just because ordinary people aren’t paying any attention and not listening and they are very well aware of that. Hitler made the statement, ‘Isn’t it lucky for dictators that ordinary people don’t pay any attention and are quite stupid politically?’ ” he said.

“I think it’s a messaging that has been honed and refined and it’s captured in this concept of fake news which Trump has sort of made into a mantra which gets constant repetition through Twitter and various news outlets and it creates a distrust in even serious journalism and coverage so people don’t know what to believe.”

Both Gertler and Garcea think the lack of interest surrounding the impeachment proceedings is advantageous for Trump because people would rather do other things than continuously follow the president’s every move.

“People are too busy enjoying themselves and they haven’t quite clued in that democracy is not something you do every four years and it’s important to be informed,” said Gertler.