New trend in Governmental Participation?

The past few weeks I have have been thinking again about several long term trends that have seemed evident to me in the way the American people view and participate in Government. First of all, one big trend I have watched for a while and really believe will continue is the rising of a new generation of conservative/Christian/evangelical type people that are very positive on the power of the populace to change the morality of the nation through political means. I can remember back in the early 1990's. There were very few conservative radio talk show hosts or media at all. Now there are hundreds. I have listened to people such as Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Schlessinger, and Dobson. The change of both the numbers of this group and their political fevor in the past 15 years is amazing to me. Many people call this the Evangelical block that was responsible for electing George W in 2004.
The second trend I have seen, is the despair and discouragement of the non-conservative block in this country. Outside of the hardcore liberal section, many people seem to be disillusioned with the political process and with government in general. Here is an article by an author I respect who talks about (in the middle) the affect that Hurricane Katrina seems to have or will have on a lot of people in the southwest. I agree with him. In my personal life, I have noticed both these trends. Whenever I talk to conservatives, they seem very energetic and upbeat regarding the possibility of change occurring through governmental processes. Whenever I talk to moderate/liberal types, often they are far more suspicious of government as a whole and despair of change ever occurring.
When analyzing the trends of a nation/world, an important part is to see how varias trends match up. What seems to be the long term implicatation from just these two trends here is that this country will continue to turn conservative in nature. One part will be almost euphoric over this, another part will despair more, distrust more, and dis-engage more.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?