Have they always been this way or have they all become wildly out of touch more recently? To an outsider, American political discourse looks like it is completely divorced from reality.

Making a joke about how iPhones are better is basically the opposite of out of touch. Most new yorkers agree, and 90% of the others are used to the joke.

Yeah, this joke specifically only ticks off the HN crowd. I forget which late night show this was, but the guy said he wouldn't switch from his iPhone even if it punched him in the face every morning. That's not offensive humor anywhere except here and maybe within Google.