Eh, while I do think there's a lot of cultural-identity politics that goes on (especially over religion), I think plenty of people from both the left and right focus on issues that are "real-world", even if it's disproportionately a lightning-rod subset of the issues. For example, people who hate taxes seem partly driven by ideology, but partly just by a desire to pay lower taxes. And people who oppose restrictions on abortion are often driven by a practical desire to have abortion clinics available in the real world as an option.

People vote based on bikeshed issues. Absolutely everyone has an opinion on gay marriage even it affects about 50,000 gay people who want to get married nationwide. However, people are bored to death by and largely ignore financial and patent reform even though it directly affects the future of almost everyone in the country.

People voting based on stances on real world issues is actually the problem. If you vote on any issue other than fixing the broken system, you're contributing to the problem.

In a lot of ways the social issues matter, but they are obscured by the shear complication of the law making process and the lack of accountability the media brings to the process. We hear pundits and politician speeches, but we never hear about the lobbyist, sponsors, co-sponsors who contributed to a bill. The news doesn't do us the service that a sports channel does by keeping score.

Actually, I think part of the problem is that people elect their politicians based on real-world issues and how they think a certain candidate will act/vote. This system allows the snakes that will say anything just for a vote to make it in politics, but fails to actually elect people who are capable of making the best decisions for their constituents and being a leader.

And, I would argue that politicians need those social issues to stay the same to continue to engage their base.

"abstract esoteric social issues"

And taxes.