No one ever accused Americans of making sense when asked leading poll questions, bless their hearts.

Just before the Winter Olympics start, a new poll is out on American views of the games in China, which open Friday (at least 13 hours ahead of North America).

Morning Consult asked Americans about advertisers of the games, which NBC will carry, and the painful and commercially awkward issue of human rights, which China is against, especially among its religious minorities.

The provocative question should not be surprising, as Morning Consult consistently develops the most interesting and useful polls on modern life and attitudes.

The survey found that among a representative sample of 2,210 U.S. adults, 58 percent would support an Olympic sponsor pulling out of the games.

Who knows what “support” means in this context – for instance, you buy one, maybe two more Cokes vs the company forfeiting the millions it’s paid for precious seconds to reach millions more with happy jingles about a world united around sport?

And infuriate the government party, which has built the world’s largest military force while ruling the world’s largest population. That makes China the world’s largest market, if you’re allowed to access its 1.4 billion members, who just celebrated their joyous new year of the tiger.

Plus ruining the corporations’ lucrative partnerships with the shady International Olympics Committee that likes this authoritative regime because the trains and construction projects always seem to run on time, among other likely reasons. Beijing this week becomes the first city ever to host both Winter and Summer (2008) games.

Okay, so pulling out is not gonna happen.

How about speaking out? Well, 55 percent of the same Americans say they would “support” an advertiser who simply speaks out against China’s ongoing human rights violations. Uh-huh.

Well, that’s not gonna happen either because (see above).

Olympic advertisers are almost but not quite underwater in the approving/disapproving eyes of Americans. Barely one-third (34 percent) say they’ll support China Olympic advertisers, while 29 percent oppose.

Oh, by the way, top Olympic advertisers collectively slip a cool $200 million to the Olympic Committee every games for the “privilege” to call themselves Official Olympic Sponsors.

These include Coca-Cola, Airbnb Inc., Intel, Procter & Gamble Co. and Visa Inc. Team USA sponsors include Nike Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., Salesforce.com Inc. and Comcast Corp., whose subsidiary, NBCUniversal, owns the Games rights.

The return on those investments has been, shall we say, troubled the last couple of years due to the COVID pandemic that – Oh, look! – originated in China and delayed the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics until last year.

And there’s been rising global protest against China’s serious human rights violations. Most prominently these policies are aimed at ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region, including mass detentions of Muslim Uighurs, Kazakhs, and others in prisons and internment camps in recent years.

The regime strongly rejects international criticism, preferring to call them ‘education centers.’

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter, who made a big campaign deal about basing U.S. diplomacy on human rights, ordered a total U.S. boycott of the Moscow Summer Olympic Games. He was protesting the Soviets’ invasion of Afghanistan, which came 22 years before the United States took its turn invading Afghanistan.

The Soviets gave up that military effort after 10 years. It took the U.S. 20 years to learn the same bloody lesson.

Joe Biden took a symbolic approach this time, calling it an official boycott over China’s human rights violations. This means no U.S. officials will appear at the Beijing games, where no spectators will be allowed anyway. Which in turn means Biden’s boycott means absolutely nothing. Presumably, Hunter approves.

Opposition to brands sponsoring the Olympic Games, despite China’s lack of human rights, is strongest, as you might guess, among older, conservative Americans, especially if they self-identify as Republicans. Democrats and generations of younger jerks considerably less.

Of course, once the competitions start, much of this vocal opposition will fade, as the Beijing regime knows.

Sponsors and NBC will instead track the medal count and tout support for these struggling, fellow Americans going up against the world’s finest state-subsidized athletes. And if any of these idealistic Americans openly protest China’s harsh policies, the party has warned they will be subject to arrest.

Wouldn’t that be a major story for media to ignore or downplay?

Something else impossible to ignore. Olympic viewership, especially with the awkward time difference from Asia, has tanked. Last summer’s NBC Olympic coverage drew 45 percent fewer viewers than the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, and 51 percent fewer in prime-time.

That means NBC must discount ad prices this time, while still paying the full rights fee to the Olympic Committee.

NBC paid — are you sitting down? — $7.75 billion for the Olympic rights through 2032. That used to seem like a whole lot of money pre-Biden.

Anyway, stand-by for increased streaming fees.

Already, Dan Lovinger, president of NBC advertising sales and Olympic partnerships, is stressing the patriotic approach to ignoring China’s record in favor of, you guessed it, advertisers’ money supporting red-blooded American athletes struggling against the odds.

They rely on the generosity of corporate America and some individuals to help them realize these dreams. So, when our advertisers decide to sit these Games out, it really hurts the athletes, because now they have to go compete with the Chinese and the Russians, and athletes from other countries that already receive massive state funding.

So, as you can see, Americans’ poll support for human rights in China is idealistic and also really naïve and quite impractical.

Now, some important viewer messages from our sponsors who spent a fortune to buy these ads hoping you won’t go to the bathroom just yet.