"If You Don't Want to be Reminded of an Unpleasant Reality, Don't Ask to be Reminded"

[ut oh]

109. You created your own Strawman

"... deliberate lack of support and unwillingness to vote for Obama is tacit support for Republicans."

I think criticism of our Dem President is acceptable and actually important. We've seen that our 'elected' officials by and large are owned by the corporations (save for a very few). This includes Obama. This does not mean he is anti-The People, but it acknowledges the fact that corporations have too munch monetary influence on politics, and policy making in general. I think it's very important to point out things like the HC legislation ended up being a big give away to the insurance industry, and a lot of progressives are angry that 'the public option' was off the table. It's these 'decisions' among others that are rightfully criticized (IMO). Criticism does not necessarily mean 'don't vote for him', but means that there's some things that he promised during his campaign that he went back on as well as taking advantage of wiggle room in his claims (Iraq withdrawl timeline for example). If we don't hold his feet to the fire, what's to keep him from moving further right?

During election season, you may have a point in swing states, where every vote could matter. In states that are blue for all intents and purposes, a 'protest' vote would simply be that and nothing more. Coming from California I know my vote matters little when it comes to Presidential elections (booo to the Electoral College). If I were to 'protest vote', making the claim that my hypothetical protest vote is tacit support for Republicans is a false dicotomy.

Besides, if politicians believe that they are guaranteed the votes from their party, what is it that would actually make them stick with the principles of that party? They could do whatever the hell they wanted and as long as they had their D or R in front of their name, they're assurred those votes?? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.