In a direct democracy, maybe this would matter, but we have a republic. Politicians aren't machines that would collate the beliefs of the American people and ac

In a direct democracy, maybe this would matter, but we have a republic. Politicians aren't machines that would collate the beliefs of the American people and act accordingly if only they had the information. They are individuals with their own agendas and incentives. So, the only way to get a law passed is to prove that passing it will result in positive outcomes for enough politicians to get a passing vote, which unfortunately tends to boil down to how voters react to the sound bite version of the issue, because not enough voters to matter will actually be thinking about a fully informed (or even marginally informed) version of the issue when it comes to voting day. So, yeah, while there are some uses for polls to find out what the beliefs of the American people actually are, they are mostly academic, not practical. National elections are popularity contests and tribal pissing contests more than anything. Or maybe I'm just in a cynical mood.