The Great Disconnect

I'd humbly suggest that there is a deeper layer beneath your description of the disconnect more fundamentally driving the effect you describe. And that is media corporatism.



The media, whose visible, on-screen elements you've very clearly described, are just the veneer. The corporations who have literally and figuratively purchased "the fourth estate," have the agenda, the means, and the motivation to move and cheer-lead as the income distribution goes from 11 times to 22 times and if they can, to 100 times. THEY are the problems.



The pundits and the Ken and Barbie dolls aren't driving the agenda and the wedge between haves and have nots as much as they are willing and easily motivated (due to the financial benefits derived from the advertising loot) accomplices in a sick, warped, and ultimately self-defeating fraud. The media conglomerates control the message - it's intensity, frequency, and "analysis." The campaign money helps keep the FCC out of the way. And on goes the game.
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The Great Disconnect

To some measurable degree, tho I haven't measured it myself due to the scale required, some of the "Christian" outlook toward the poor is based on blind faith in other subtle ways. Specifically, those who would otherwise be distraught over the plight of others purposefully replace empathy with apathy. In a phrase, "god will help them."



Another is a feeling that a god will reward them with tangible things if they are "good." So the rich people (and even non-rich people!!!!... which I just can't wrap my brain around...) equate wealth with goodness. In a phrase, "god has chosen to reward my goodness with prosperity and if someone doesn't have prosperity, it's because god hates them... and why would I ever want to help someone hated by god?"



Sick.
About Paul Krugman
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The September 12 March Against Sanity

I am 100% with you - except for the list of things that steamed those protesters.



These people are probably clinically paranoid, or at least extraordinarily insecure. The intensity of their fears removes any compulsion for logic or reason. So virtually ANYTHING that is said gets them "steamed." And it doesn't really matter who delivers the "news" - and they are basically addicted to anything that can feed their rage.



Abortion is an easy binary (well, it's not really binary, but being completely anti- vs. any other nuanced position is as close as they can get) thing for their brains to handle in the perpetual siege mentality. But pretty much anything else will do.
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