People awaiting the Rapture
I'm not sure that this is a minor part of the Republican portion of Americans (or Americans in general, for that matter). Some very dear friends, who are American, down to earth, and intelligent, firmly believe that we are in the "End Times".
A story inTime:
A TIME/CNN poll finds that more than one-third of Americans say they are paying more attention now to how the news might relate to the end of the world, and have talked about what the Bible has to say on the subject. Fully 59% say they believe the events in Revelation are going to come true, and nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the Sept. 11 attack.
This is from 2002, but I suspect the numbers will have gone up since then.