Democrat Impeachment Gets Worse Ratings Than Soap Operas

Tristan Justice reporting for The Federalist

More people would rather watch the predictable, fake melodrama offered by soap operas than the predictable, fake melodrama currently being peddled by the Democrats.

According to Nielsen data, just over four million people across the big three broadcast networks of CBS, ABC, and NBC tuned into the Democrats’ opening arguments in President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial on Wednesday. In contrast, nearly 11 million continued watching soap operas, such as “The Young & The Restless,” “The Bold & The Beautiful,” “General Hospital,” and “Days of Our Lives.”

Wednesday’s ratings were a decline from Tuesday’s, where the first day of the trial garnered an average of 5.1 million viewers across the three networks.

Cable news networks added 4.8 million viewers on Wednesday, which marked a decline from Tuesday, where 6 million people watched on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC.

Even those living in Washington D.C. have been ignoring the trial. According to an InstaPoll from Fox 5, 63 percent of DCers reported not having watched any of the trial.

This week’s numbers echo the same ratings that the House impeachment hearings earned last fall, when only an estimated 13.8 million people watched the first public impeachment hearing by the House Intelligence Committee across all 10 networks. These values represent a stark difference from the 20 million people who watched Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony during his confirmation hearing in the fall of 2018.

The lack of viewership for the Senate impeachment trial illustrates a public understanding of what a show trial the proceedings have become. In other words, Americans recognize the difference between performative actions full of useless bravado and events where major outcomes may result, such as the Kavanaugh hearings.

Democrats need at least 20 Republican senators to vote in favor of a guilty verdict, an event which is certain not to happen, given public support for impeachment has remained underwater for more than a month, according to Real Clear Politics’ latest aggregate of polls.