[Kaveren]

> Secondly, I believe it confuses cause and effect.

People say a lot of things. People mostly agree with universal background checks for guns. It isn't the Evil Rich People preventing this from happening, and the NRA isn't particularly rich itself even though it's a popular bogeyman.

People talk a lot about climate change until it's time to shape policy on it. Someone answering a poll question doesn't matter, what people vote for matters.

Your argument comes from a fantasy where most people actually agree with you, but the lobbyists just prevent things from changing. In reality, many people are very poorly informed. People don't understand just how powerful political mobilization and voting is. I agree that they think voting won't do anything, but they'd be wrong about that.

[ulisesrmzroche]

You don't have any data backing your claims.

[Kaveren]

What data do you want? Look at the way people change their answers to whether or not they support Medicare For All based on how the question is phrased, or support for the Affordable Care Act [1]. What you are asking for is asinine. The data is the results of elections. You are the one who has provided no evidence for your claim.

If you think what someone answers to an opinion poll matters here, you're just wrong. Show me people voting based on these issues as a primary factor and not seeing results because politicians magically change their minds after winning.

"economic elite" is literally defined as anyone in the top 10% of income by that study. Guess what income group always votes? Those same people. And they're going to be the ones pressing for action the most. [2] And they are more educated, so it's stupid to compare public opinion like this. You need to compare expert consensus to policy and public opinion.

Not to mention the Electoral College and Senate.

What data do you expect?

[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/obamacare-vs-affordable-care-... [2] https://econofact.org/voting-and-income