yeah unfortunately most people have no idea who they vote for. they always vote for their party because their party is the good guys and the other party are bad guys. it doesn't have to be this way, you can hold your elected officials responsible. either during the primaries or the general election. no matter how you feel about your favored party, anything is better than someone who has already proven themselves to act against your interests.
politics ain't fun or exciting, but boy golly does it ever matter, especially when people keep giving more and more power to the government in general, and never vote to take that power away.
I mean it matters in a technical sense, but in all honesty this situation is proof positive that votes don't really matter, on the whole. The masses are always going to be swayed by opportunistic sociopaths and there's not much anyone can do about it, besides becoming a more convincing sociopath. It's not left, right, or any party. If we leveled all the existing institutions tomorrow and rebuilt from scratch, people could still pull "think of the children" and it would still be just as effective.