And boredom works as the remote. Tucker Carlson, with his bespoke blend of anger and ennui, described the House impeachment hearings as the story of “how some obscure diplomat you’ve never heard of said something forgettable to an even more obscure Ukrainian government official about a topic that literally has nothing to do with your life or the future of our country.” His disinterest was convenient. Earlier soliloquies from Carlson, after all, had framed the “obscure diplomat you’ve never heard of” as the opposite of tedious: a potential member of the “deep state,” an agent of anti-Trumpism whose very ability to fade into the background is the source of the threat he represents. When it came to impeachment, though, it was in Carlson’s interest to dismiss the diplomats—public servants who had damning and decidedly un-boring information to share about Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine—as dull. Literally has nothing to do with your life. The Fox host’s argument anticipated the one that would come later, from the U.S. secretary of State, as he raged at a reporter who questioned him about diplomacy: “Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?”

Boredom, thus weaponized, sends messages about who, and what, is worth one’s attention—and about who, and what, is not. Those messages extend far beyond partisan politics. On Monday, during the New York criminal trial of Harvey Weinstein, Jessica Mann, one of the more than 80 women who have accused the mogul of sexual misconduct, offered searing and graphic testimony about Weinstein’s alleged abuse of her. (Weinstein has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex acts.) Mann told the court about Weinstein’s “unpredictable anger.” She told the court that Weinstein had raped her, and that, when she saw him again, he had ripped her pants off while screaming, “You owe me one more time!” Mann wept on the stand as she told her story. Weinstein, meanwhile? He dozed off.

Boredom claims not to care; used in this way, though, boredom cares deeply. Boredom looks inward, and nowhere else. Weinstein napping in the courtroom as his accuser speaks is a tidy encapsulation of a culture that is itself, too often, bored by the stories survivors tell. The man sleeping as the woman cries: It may well be a legal strategy. It also suggests an environment of disordered empathy.

And so does, in its way, the collective sigh that has greeted Trump’s impeachment. You might expect that the president’s allies would use everything at their disposal to defend him. You might expect that Republican members of the U.S. Senate would prevent witnesses from testifying at a trial and then loudly complain about the dullness of a trial with no witnesses. What you might not expect, though, is that the partisans’ professed ennui would also go airborne—that it would be mimicked by those who are not propagandistic in their aims. “Unlike the best reality TV shows—not to mention the Trump presidency itself—fireworks and explosive moments were scarce,” Reuters lamented at the hearings’ outset. NBC News set a similar tone: “The first two witnesses called Wednesday testified to President Trump’s scheme, but lacked the pizzazz necessary to capture public attention.” And it is not merely the news media that have professed their dissatisfaction with what happens when the Constitution gets optioned for a TV show. This past weekend, Saturday Night Live’s assessment of the impeachment proceedings began with a declaration that the event had consisted of “two weeks of dry debate and posturing.” The show’s cold open offered to rectify the dullness, staging for viewers “the trial you wish had happened”: a wacky musical comedy.