Sixty Percent of Democrats Expect Trump to Get Fair Trial in Senate, Proving We’re a Broken, Duped People

By Shane Ryan  |  December 17, 2019 | 10:15am
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Politics Features Impeachment
Sixty Percent of Democrats Expect Trump to Get Fair Trial in Senate, Proving We’re a Broken, Duped People
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A lot of outlets are reporting the fact that seven in ten Americans believe Trump’s top aides should be allowed to testify in his Senate trial, and the general tone is that this is somehow significant. It’s not, really—it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks in the face of McConnell’s cynical and total control, and if the numbers are meant to say something positive about the American people, well…the fact that only seventy percent believe in the basic tenets of a fair trial isn’t exactly front-of-the-American-brochure material.

However, that same ABC News-Washington Post poll has another little factoid buried after the lede, and it’s staggering:

six in 10 expect a fair trial in the Senate

WHAT?

Here’s a further breakdown, from the poll text:

There’s also bipartisanship in the expectation that Trump will get a fair trial in the Senate: Sixty-two percent of adults are very or somewhat confident of this, including approximately equal numbers of Republicans (61 percent), Democrats (62 percent) and independents (64 percent).

This is monumental, in the sense of what it says about American Democrats. Forget the Republicans—how the hell do you explain the fact that almost two-thirds of Democrats think the Senate trial of Trump will be anything but a farce? McConnell has already told everybody that he’s coordinating with White House counsel! Republicans have no other aim than to protect Trump at all costs, no matter what the evidence, and there is absolutely zero chance he will be removed from office. It is, from the outset, not “fair.”

So how on earth can Democrats believe otherwise? They’re either dupes, or they have no awareness of the current makeup of our legislative branch. There’s no other explanation beyond these two, and both of them are terrifying—imagine being either so uninformed or so starry-eyed that you’d fall for this. Gullibility and ignorance will be the undoing of this country, more than anything Trump could dream up.

 
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