What the overwhelming majority of Americans believe doesn’t matter, because the US is not a direct democracy; it is a representative republic. The representatives are elected, and are massively corrupt. The corruption comes in many different forms, like gerrymandering, first past the post voting leading to a two party system, private monetary donations to political campaigns leading to representatives doing their donors’ bidding, revolving door politics, the owner class having ownership over the means of production leading to massive consolidation of wealth which then ties back into private money in politics and the revolving door, etc.
When looking at polling data, the American people are pretty solidly social democrats, but US policy does not reflect that at all; instead, it reflects the will of the corporations and wealthy donors, except for very rare situations where there is a form of direct democracy, like direct ballot initiatives, for example. When looking at bills that are signed into law outside of direct ballot initiatives, 99.99% of the time, it reflects the interests of the wealthy or fascists (since the wealthy prefers fascism over any semblence of socialism, since it keeps them in power).
What the overwhelming majority of Americans believe doesn’t matter, because the US is not a direct democracy; it is a representative republic. The representatives are elected, and are massively corrupt. The corruption comes in many different forms, like gerrymandering, first past the post voting leading to a two party system, private monetary donations to political campaigns leading to representatives doing their donors’ bidding, revolving door politics, the owner class having ownership over the means of production leading to massive consolidation of wealth which then ties back into private money in politics and the revolving door, etc.
When looking at polling data, the American people are pretty solidly social democrats, but US policy does not reflect that at all; instead, it reflects the will of the corporations and wealthy donors, except for very rare situations where there is a form of direct democracy, like direct ballot initiatives, for example. When looking at bills that are signed into law outside of direct ballot initiatives, 99.99% of the time, it reflects the interests of the wealthy or fascists (since the wealthy prefers fascism over any semblence of socialism, since it keeps them in power).