Whatever constitutes 'responsible patriotism' is merely an individual judgment call, not an absolute. You may believe it's always responsible to vote for the lesser of two evils and I may believe such a view is narrow and naive, and that standing on principle, even if it sometimes means electoral defeat, is the responsible course. But if we are either both right or both wrong then our use of the term 'responsible patriotism' would be meaningless.

I wouldn't think of impugning your patriotism by calling it irresponsible just because I disagreed with you. The only reason democracy works even some of the time is because it allows for the reality that even responsible people can have strongly different perspectives and yet ostensibly, if imperfectly, allows those divergent views a place in the decisionmaking process by which the country is governed.

One other small point. Many democracies where I've been allow for a voter to vote a white card, a vote which is, in essence, a vote for "none of the above". Some argue that such a vote is a wasted vote. I bet though, if we had such a 'carta blanca' vote option here in the US it would transform the public political discourse into something where a much more meaningful and accurate analysis of the political landscape could take place. Rather than the dominant, eternal lament by those who see any vote as being better than no vote that "Only X% of people voted and this is why our democracy is screwed up", we'd have pundits evaluating the very real and important affirmative vote of those who said "No Thanks" to all the candidates. I believe we'd benefit from such an option, but of course, our two party system chiefs would never permit such an idea to take hold here. Demonizing the other party's candidate is so much a part of their methodolgy for legitimizing their own guy that allowing the option to vote 'a pox on both your houses' would render their current 'divide and conquer' strategy woefully inadequate. Hence it will not come to pass here anytime soon.

Denial is our most dangerous adversary.