This might sound like an odd question, but hear me out.
One first must ask, what is “a political issue”. Most political issues are yes-or-no questions. Things like do you support firearms, do you want the US to refrain from war, do you think the police should be policed, etc. Things become political issues over time, and typically they involve aspects of the government that are up for debate.
You know what is an aspect of the government that is up for debate? Lie detectors. Or sort of.
Lie detectors are a tool people in the government use to get the truth out of people. However, they’re quite well-known to just not work that well, they don’t correspond well enough to honesty to count as honesty-measuring tools.
People all across the political spectrum will cringe at their existence. Ask a Democrat what they think of lie detectors and they’ll most likely look down on them. Ask a Republican what they think of lie detectors and they’ll most likely look down on them. Everyone who has done their homework looks down on them.
But in a world that talks about police reform and technology implementation, these archaic devices are still there, still in places that reside over law, still used to measure the honest of prisoners, still treated like serious tools, and are still allowed to cause innocent, honest people to suffer in prisons for things they didn’t do.
So, then, if Democrats know better, and Republicans know better, and most of the layperson world knows better, what entity is out there saying “you all disagree with its existence, but we are pro-lie-detector when it comes to the issues and will keep it in power”? If bipartisan opposition for something isn’t enough to make change, how does this not signal something more powerful than the two parties is in power? Why is this not treated as a political issue, be it a bipartisan one or one which, when declared a political issue, we can enjoy the shifts in opinion for them which would ironically be better for taking them out of power?
I thought the bipartisan consensus was that they don’t work as well as people assume they should.
There’s a difference between rhetoric and policy.
The rhetorical consensus is as you say, lie detectors don’t work and everyone knows it.
The policy consensus, though, is that lie detectors are essential tools that allow interrogators to get whatever results they want from suspects and witnesses. They’re useful, even if they don’t actually detect lies. It’s useful to be able to call someone a liar and back it up.
No one cares how well they work to detect lies if someone “failing” or refusing to take a polygraph test can be used as evidence. No one in a position to ban their use, anyway.