I think voters are willing to engage on the merits of candidates. I think it's just that their merit consideration set is completely different from mine, and probably from yours.
As for religious fatalism, you probably agree that's baked into the condition of being a person without any real power to change their circumstances. Yes, this is America and we tell ourselves we can do anything we want if we just put our minds to it, but two things: (1) having the strength of mind and available resources to overcome substantial obstacles in the service of doing anything you want are exceptional qualities, not normal qualities, so people who feel locked in to their circumstances need something else to believe in to get them through life, which religions based on afterlife provide; and (2) is that really true in America, anyway? Or at least any truer than in any one of several dozen other countries we could name? We've had caste systems calcified into our national DNA for over four centuries now. That's going to take additional effort to completely overcome, and there is strong opposition even to overcoming it.