While blame should be placed on politicians who use such issues to drive votes instead of tackling bigger, more boring challenges, we also have to fault the populace for being easily distracted, emotive, etc.
Wedge issues are what make them angry, or scared enough to post on social media, etc. It collectively is a dark pattern that subverts our tendency to fix broken things by making us believe that everything is broken.
Wedge issues are bad overall for society, but they are not anyone's "fault" except for society. What you're arguing connotes to me that people are victims of some kind, but the fact is the "dark pattern" works because people care about that stuff. I think they are logically incorrect for assigning these issues disproportionate weight, but like...they're free to lol, and it's not inherently invalid.
But then, take something like abortion. Some people really feel strongly about that issue (on both sides of the political spectrum). There are people who do vote based on that single issue alone. They are free voters who have constructed their moral/political rubric or w/e, and have elected to accord that single issue decisive importance in their political decisions. That would seem to me to be a feature, not a bug, of democracy.
The results of that diversion can be seen all over the country as things literally collapse, or fall apart.
Programs that are popular with the people consistently go to die in Congress.
All this with the support of a media that almost exclusively covers wedge issues, and ignores bipartisan screwjobs.