Adam Gessaman 
I teach AP US Government. I’ve never seen polling showing Congress this out of touch across the board. It’s wild.
Toot Ωncommon - SHUT 🇺🇸 DOWN@adam Another take is that what the people initially want doesn’t hold over time especially when their opinion is being constantly force-fed. The public at large hasn’t born daily witness and is largely ignorant of the history of this decades-long conflict. The same public that believes by similarly wide margins that the invasion of Ukraine began in 2021, not 2014. Seems the story here could be our leaders know facts and have the leadership to wait for public opinion to right itself. Just maybe.
@opethminded it’s a plausible explanation. It does presume that we send our most sage statesmen to DC and/or that some special secret knowledge justifies their current rejection of their constituents’ wishes.
Isn’t it just as plausible that they fear changing course because we’ve stigmatized changing one’s mind?
@adam I think that, as with any issue of such size and complexity, there are a few significant considerations that control, not just one.
@opethminded Completely agree. 🙂
Matt Sicker@adam @opethminded the politicians may not be individually smart, but they do hire a lot of policy nerds and people who do know their shit (but are often disproportionately wealthy people because who else can afford to live in DC and work as a staffer)
@sickmatter They do surround themselves with more knowledgeable people. It’s also very uncommon for those people to speak publicly against their members’ actions, but that did happen earlier this week. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/13/us/politics/democratic-aides-congress-israel-hamas.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
@adam interesting! It’s extremely rare for them to speak out like this; I’ve literally never heard this happen before. Do staffers get access to intelligence reports and shit, too? Or is that limited to the politicians? Could be that the staffers don’t even know why their bosses are supportive of Israel’s actions (for whatever reason that might be)
@sickmatter I haven’t heard of any general classified briefings for all of Congress re: this conflict. The Gang of 8 has the most access to briefings, but all congresspeople have some access.
I’m skeptical of the idea that there is secret information that would persuade Americans that the bombing of Gaza is necessary, effective, and humane. It would be in Israel’s best interest to release that evidence and our representatives would be repeating it to justify their position.
@adam I’m also skeptical that releasing any supposed evidence will help, either. Suppose it’s tactical information about where specific Hamas individuals are; sharing that info publicly would just cause those individuals to move somewhere else! Plus, who would believe the politicians providing evidence? Politicians are often great at providing selective evidence (especially Republicans; remember yellow cake)