Do you have a local municipal government and a state government, or are living on a boat in a river? That's the democracy part, not what happens in DC. Your cops, teachers, building inspectors, health department, and other government workers that you will actually deal with in real life is where the real democracy comes in. They work for you, through elected people you can actually talk to. You're welcome to speak at their meetings. Unless you are in a large, corrupt city, it will probably be non-partisan democracy as well. You don't have much to do with that TV show going on in Washington, at least no more than the other 330,000,000 American individuals do.