It's not that the people are disconnected, it's that they don't pay attention. That's why we have a representative government, so that we can pick people whose job it is to pay attention. Then we grade them on their performance when they come up for re-election.
-PJ
How will the people "grade them" if they are not paying attention? Why don't they pay attention? Because so many have lost the vision of love of freedom from government and the price it takes to keep it.
Freedom and the Constitution belong to the AMERICAN PEOPLE and no one else. After it's all said and done, if the people fail to keep this most precious, last bastion of freedom, embodied and protected by the U.S. Constitution, then they have failed in what Benjamin Franklin said when asked, Well, Doctor, what have we gota Republic or a Monarchy? to which he replied, A Republic, if you can keep it.