Last night's Falcons game and today's presidential inauguration on FB.

[Claybrains]

Last night, FB was ablaze with excitement as the Dirty Birds were on their way to the Super Bowl only to be doused in bitter disappointment by the 49er's. Today will celebrate the life of civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King, and the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama. There were three posts quoting Dr. King, and two negative for the president. One retired car salesmen called him a SOB, and pointed finger at those of us who obviously voted for him. Apparently I'm helping to steal money from his granddaughter. The other comment came from a young naive 20 year old girl who works retail and attends a Southern Baptist Church. She believes that Obama is destroying the country with he's tyranny. Wow, really? That's it? Granted this based on a small 200 person friend list. I'm an average married women with 2 children. Our FB friends are teachers, real estates agents, and small businessmen/women, etc. Pretty average sample, I assume. That is why I'm so disappointed. I know I'm not the only Obama supporter, since our county went blue in a sea of red. If you ask the asshole car salesmen, he would say it was because of all the blacks and Mexicans. Which I am neither. So there lies my dilemma. The life of a happy and excited, yet lonesome democrat. Yay!

[bench scientist]

1. yes, being a tiny blue dot in a sea of red ,here in GA can be lonesome

[RebelOne]

3. True. I live in the totally red county of Cherokee. I think I am the only Democrat that lives here.

[pamela]

2. I think Obama supporters are just quieter than the teabagger types.

Republicans are very good at empowering their followers to speak out, and they do, loudly and frequently. Add to that all the right-wing radio and Fox news giving them specific talking points day in and day out and it's easy to sometimes feel as if everyone is a rightwinger.

You said you have around 200 Facebook friends but only mentioned a handful who said negative things about Obama. There's a very good chance that some of the silent ones also like Obama but keep quiet because they also feel like they are in the minority.

I read a blog from a guy who is a moderate and posts mostly non-political posts. When he occasionally mentions anything political, he immediately gets a bunch of comments about how horrible Obama is, how he's ruining America, etc. I use to get depressed reading it and thought I was the only one from his group of readers who likes Obama. One day, after reading a bunch of "Obama sucks" posts I decided to speak up. I didn't rant, I just said I liked Obama and thought he was doing a pretty good job considering what he had faced. Then, I mentioned a few thing he had done that I liked. The response shocked me. Suddenly others were commenting that they liked him, too. It was like a damn burst. I guess no one wanted to be the first person to defend him and just assumed that they were the only one who felt that way.

Millions of people voted for Obama. In the reddest of red counties, there are still thousands of people who voted for him. Republicans encourage their supporters to be loud and obnoxious because they know that works to make the rest of us shut up. Don't be afraid to speak up! You're not alone, they just want to make you think that you are.

[Claybrains]

4. Thanks for the words of encouragement.

After surviving an arduous year of campaigning of constant lies and bullying ,we manage to come out the other side victorious. There were so many times I would have that sick feeling we would lose our president to that bobble-head Romney. In my small county of 50,000 or so, I didn't see much if any support for Obama in the form of bumper stickers, yard signs, or in the newspaper. I wanted to show my support, but was fearful of vandalism. I'd like to think we are a more civilized and caring party. I honestly wanted to rub it in their faces though. You are probably right about others that support Obama, but just choose to keep their opinions to themselves. It's hard to see it from that perspective when you are in the box looking out. Thanks again Pamela.

[groundloop]

5. I probably don't speak up as often as I should either

The few times I have I've gotten much less flak than I thought I would. When people are bitching about Obama-care (aka Affordable Care Act) I ask if they don't think it's a good idea to be able to keep their kids on insurance until age 26, most of the time their answer is "well, I like that part of it". Then when asked if it's a good thing that insurance companies can no longer refuse coverage based on preexisting conditions, it's more of "yes, but.....". And when pressed for what they don't like about the Affordable Care Act the only thing they ever come up with is that nobody should be forced to buy health insurance (and of course the answer to that is to follow the European and Canadian models of healthcare, which of course end up costing less than our bloated healthcare system.

I think that, at least in this part of the country, repubs have been so vocal and hateful for so long that anyone is afraid to speak up and disagree with them.