The biggest hot button issues are abortion and gay marriage.
Why are social issues more likely to push hot buttons than economic ones? Just about any given economic issue (like taxes, the deficit, business regulations, labor issues, etc.) will have a bigger impact on more people on a day-to-day basis.
I find it incredibly frustrating too. I don't give a rat's ass one way or another what a politician has to say about two men getting married or about whether he feels abortion is sinful. I suppose if they were equal on all important issues, and it came down to it, I'd vote for the guy that was into letting two men get married if they wanted, etc., but they're never equal, are they. and that's the frustrating part. I would also like to see a good answer to this question. dazzleman made a good point. Maybe it's a Maslow's Hierarchy Triangle, but applied to a whole society. And maybe food, shelter, and clothing needs have been fulfilled, so now we're into self-actualization. I never feel that way, but then I tend to save and invest, as I'm fairly cheap. But to listen to the news reports, that's atypical yank behavior. Thus dazzleman's point is at least superficially validated. Another line of evidence to support that argument is cross-cultural. Remember when I was bitching about how folks from OECD countries are boring to talk to about politics, since it's always that fluffy wedge issue crap? Well, it kinda makes sense in the hierarchy of needs frame of reference. If you're from El Salvador, you're likely to be passionate about important issues because you likely haven't met those needs yet, whereas if you're from the USA or Germany or even Spain and Greece (though the latter is something of a stretch), you're likely to have satisfied those needs due to the combined political activities of activists in previous generations. So you bitch about the weather, and other stuff beyond your control: what to do with the fat woman, what to do with the girly man, what to do with the assholes that make you angry. maybe dazzleman's point wasn't so far off the mark.
