Specifically, 80–90% of Americans underestimate the prevalence of support for major climate change mitigation policies and climate concern. While 66–80% Americans support these policies, Americans estimate the prevalence to only be between 37–43% on average. Thus, supporters of climate policies outnumber opponents two to one, while Americans falsely perceive nearly the opposite to be true.
I think that's what people are responding to when they underestemiated public support. They retain the idea (despite everything) that the bourgeois democratic state responds to public opinion or is in some way justified by popular support - so if something hasn't happened for 20 years (like meaningful reform in the face of climate change), then ipso facto it must not have public support. But of course, the bourgeois states derives legitimacy from the only faction with actual power under capitalism and THAT'S who they respond to. And they've decided they're going to ride out climate change, but honestly at some point previously I'm not sure if capitalism is even responding to human movement anymore or if it's gone totally off the rails or if it's taken on its own prerogatives now with computation and complexity and kinda just running itself for its own needs.
100%. that nothing will meaningfully change is obvious to anyone paying even the slightest attention, the causes are less so because we're inundated constantly with the lie that this is democracy.
the ambient but powerful sense that something is deeply wrong and can't easily be fixed extends to other issues. and if one is stuck in the framework that America is at least supposed to be a democracy, then there must be something nefarious misleading the demos. If you're a liberal, the people have been duped by Russian, Chinese, and/or Republican disinformation. If you're a conservative, the masses have been corrupted by wokeism, groomers, cultural Marxists, etc.