Answer:
Active political participation is important for US citizens because of how the US Government gets it's power by the people of the country, as is how most democracies work. Therefore, without that input, the government could not make laws or anything of the sort.
Explanation:
If you have a democracy and people, the people must make the decisions for the democracy because aforementioned twice democracy cannot make it's own decisions, according to the US Constitution. This would leave the government unable to do anything, the country would supposedly fall into a revolt and collapse.