Our opinions, behaviors, and understanding of the world are shaped and socialized from birth by our experiences and conditions. That means that here in the US, we (unevenly) internalize capitalist, colonialist, racist, and patriarchal ideas, in many ways without even realizing it. This happens through things like media, art, school, and social interactions—what Marx called superstructure—and it is how the system legitimizes and reproduces itself. The hegemonic status quo is both omnipotent and invisible, depending on where you look or whether you even understand that there is something to look for.
Consequently, public opinion around politics has to be taken with a big grain of salt, particularly as reflected in issue-based polling data. The results of these polls can often be significantly altered by slight changes in wording, which is a reflection not only of a lack of ideological commitment, but also how relatively meaningless it is to merely say you support something versus actually sacrificing for it. People will often voice support for causes like racial justice and affordable housing, then fight against the policies that would materially enshrine them. Sometimes they are operating in bad faith, but I think people are just as often lying to themselves. Nobody thinks they are a villain; instead, we create mental architectures to justify what we are conditioned to want to do.
Even despite all this, a majority of the public often develops opinions contrary to those of ruling class ideologies (albeit sometimes in misguided ways). People in the US are broadly supportive of progressive and redistributive policies like increased taxes on the wealthy, universal childcare, single payer healthcare, and a Green New Deal. Unfortunately, public opinion is simply not a driver of policy outcomes in the US. This is obvious if you pay attention; many unpopular policies get enacted and many popular policies do not. This has even been empirically studied: “...our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts.”
However, politicians and pundits will often deploy the concept of public opinion when it suits them—typically in reductive or outright false ways—as they try to shape it in the process. For example, Senator Joe Manchin and those providing cover for him often point to the fact that he was elected by a “red state” and therefore needs to be more conservative to represent his constituents, including tanking the Build Back Better (BBB) bill. One poll from last August found that a majority of West Virginia voters supported BBB, but a brand new poll found that a similar majority now supports Manchin’s position. I think this is a reflection of some combination of the fickleness of opinion polling, the misleading media onslaught around inflation and BBB, and the malleability of political opinions. Additionally, the concept of so-called red and blue states is quite reductive. This dichotomy treats states as politically monolithic largely based on which party a majority of around half of their voting-eligible population chose in the last few elections. This ignores the sizable portion of voters who chose the other side along with the huge number of nonvoters and the disenfranchised (and of course the structure of the political system).
Most importantly, this type of analysis treats political beliefs as both static and holistic. People are often politically disengaged, and they typically hold views that are incoherent, contradictory, and malleable. If you have spent any time canvassing, you are intimately familiar with this. But the public’s political beliefs are typically portrayed as existing on a neat linear spectrum, with everyone able to be slotted into homogeneous ideological categories, which is simply not the reality even under our conditions of capitalist hegemony. The number of committed, pro-corporate “moderates” in this country, the likes of which dominate the halls of power in DC, cable TV, and mainstream op-ed pages, could probably not even fill up a basketball arena.
Even self-identifying with a particular party or ideology is more of a cultural signifier than a reflection of a coherent, deeply considered set of beliefs. A vote does not necessarily reflect complete support for the ideology and policy platform of the candidate being voted for, nor does it necessarily reflect a complete rejection of the same for the candidates not chosen (not to mention all the possibilities that are not even on the ballot). People choose to vote the way they do, or to not vote, for all sorts of reasons that they may or may not understand. A vote, like a poll, is a snapshot in time and does not represent any sort of commitment, nor is it a particularly meaningful political act. Other forms of ongoing political engagement like community organizing or unionizing are much more impactful, particularly given the undemocratic nature of the US political system.
We should fight for what is right and necessary rather than focusing on what is or is not popular at the moment. That does not mean being unstrategic and utopian, but it does mean always pushing the boundaries of what seems possible. Plenty of good things that have happened were very unpopular at first, like the now often-sanitized Black civil rights movement of the 20th century. Garnering majority or even universal public support for a given policy is not how meaningful political change happens. That will require solidarity in action: persistent, durable organizing that meets people where they are at by engaging in real, connected political struggle where they live and work, transforming how they relate to each other in the process. I can’t predict precisely how that could occur on a mass scale in our current conditions, but I am dedicated to collectively figuring it out and making it happen. Just never tell me the polls.