Watching impeachment from afar, same divide but little persuasion

At his nearly century-old diner in the western Ohio town of Defiance, third-generation owner Karl Kissner has turned on Fox News for live coverage of President Donald Trump's impeachment trial.

For his many customers who aren't interested, the other TV sets at Kissner's are on The Weather Channel and the Food Network.

A Trump supporter who says he doesn't push his politics on patrons, Kissner says he hears "snide" comments about impeachment -- but, usually, nothing at all.

"The majority of what I'm seeing here is that people are ignoring it. Or they're looking up at it, saying, 'Oh, that's on again,' and moving on with their conversations," he said.

As the US election season opens, a team of AFP journalists is taking the political pulse of the country by driving from Washington to Iowa, which on February 3 holds the nation's first contest to select presidential nominees.

From a cluttered barber shop in Pennsylvania steel country to a cozy winery off Lake Erie, television sets are bringing the impeachment saga live -- but, much like in Washington, few minds appeared to change.

Democrats applauded lawmakers' determination to punish Trump for pressing Ukraine to dig up dirt on his domestic rival Joe Biden, while Republicans, like Trump, accused Democrats of subverting voters' will and spoke at times in conspiratorial tones.

A CNN poll published Monday found that 51 percent of Americans wanted the Senate to remove Trump from office. But separate polling has shown more lukewarm views in critical swing states -- and many people did not seem to be paying attention.

"The impeachment process is above my head. There are so many different steps," autobody shop owner Alvin Ross said at a diner in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, a jigsaw puzzle of Elvis framed on the wall.

But Ross said he was open to learning more about impeachment and is personally repelled by Trump.

An African American, Ross says that Trump's rhetoric has worsened racial tensions.

"This is the guy who says he knows more than the generals," he said. "I can go to McDonald's and apply for a job and they'll ask, do you have any experience? He can run the whole United States with no experience."
"The Democrats started this fight," he said. "There's already been a divide and they've further separated the country."