You've hit the nail on the head: inequality is at the heart of this. Unfortunately, people are quick to forget the democratic foundation of society. It is not big businesses that have the final say, neither is it the middle classes or any other segment of population. It is the people, collectively, that have influence. And when you forget that over a long period of time, it comes back to bite you hard. Lesson for the future: take inequality seriously.
It's not that strange really. I don't think most poor people hold the wealth of the rich against them so much as they resent the feeling that the rich think they're superior, or that the rich dismiss and ignore everyone, and rig the system.
A rich guy who says the things that the poor already believe (rightly or not), things nobody else will say, has a leg up on gaining their support. People want a champion, whether or not that champion looks like them. (cf. Gracchus [1])
