When half of American lives paycheck to paycheck they care about putting food in table instead of petty politics or data collections.
Which is to say the vast majority have plenty of time to think about politics. They don't but that is because they choose to do other things, not because they lack time. (even those who do take the time often only think about it superficially)
People have been getting the opposite of what they explicitly vote for, for ages...
Just some recent examples:
In Europe an example is the popular sentiment against further unckecked immigration for example, and people voting politicians promising against that, and getting more.
Or how in the US how people voted someone promising no new wars, talking against foreign interventionist policy and so on, and see what they got.