Donald Trump arraignment leaves mixed feelings among Massachusetts voters
BOSTON – Walking through Copley Square during her lunch hour, Michelle Keith stared at her phone and listened through earbuds as Donald Trump walked into court.
"His whole history, that it's now come down to this," she said. "I have to follow it."
Asked if she thought it would help or hurt the former president, she answered both.
"He's got a base that, nothing sways them," she said.
Some of that Trump base is in Bellingham, where a man behind the register at a souvenir store said Tuesday's news is boosting sales. A woman stopped in for a Trump flag.
"It's a witch hunt. Dumb and dumber's running this country and they just don't want Trump to come back and fix everything," she said.
Back in Boston, some felt the attention was misplaced.
"All of this other stuff that's surrounding him is only making him the O.J. Simpson of the day," Ed Luchtenberg said.
Others said the visual of Trump sitting in court will endure in our country's history.
"Trump now in that courtroom is diminished because he can't speak. He has to be respectful of the proceedings and the judge in charge. He's just a player on the stage. He's not pulling the strings here, and that's a role that he's unaccustomed to," Boston University historian Tom Whalen said. "I think partially Trump is looking for a major political effect here. He's acting on the stage. He's playing the political martyr, so he's Sir Thomas More meets Joan of Arc. He's heading for the stake. He's the martyr, and he wants people to have sympathy for him."