apathy and the death of democracy

The title sounds a little pompous and I am certainly not going to publish an opus on the subject, but some recent studies and my own experience seems to show that most of my fellow Americans pay little attention to politics and when they do it is to wish a plague on both parties.  It is unfortunate, especially at this juncture, when one of the parties vying to govern the US has evidently lost its collective mind.  The rump of today's Republican party is composed mostly of gun nuts, religious zealots, racists and know nothings who have driven the party so far to the right it is scary.   To these idiots, science is something to mock, facts are deniable (see climate change) and anything that does not fit the preferred world view is rejected.  Unfortunately, these people vote and if the broader American electorate does not participate in the process, this minority of haters will wield power all out of proportion to their actual numbers.  The really terrifying thing is the far right has no interest in democracy or the practice thereof.  The rise of a charismatic leader to marshal the hate and direct it is a prospect I would hate to see, but the conditions are there and we ignore them at our peril.