The Color of Politics
I’ve been annoyed for years now at the identification of American conservatives with the color red.
The connection of particular colors to the two major US political parties was inconsistent prior to the late 1990s, though the parties had existed for well over a century by that time. As far back as the 1888 national elections, the Republicans were blue and the Democrats red.
This was used off and on for most of the last century. In the 1980s, Reagan’s landslide 44-state win made the electoral map almost entirely blue, causing NBC’s David Brinkley to describe the map as being as blue as “a suburban swimming pool“) Even in 2004, the color pattern was not quite stabilized; articles printed in late 2003 and early 2004 might use red for Democrats. But this was fairly rare; the 2000 election was the first time the major networks seem to have agreed on a color scheme, and it eventually became stuck.
It’s stuck in the wrong place, it seems to me. As the Times put it 2004:
To many, this palette represents an ignorant (or perhaps intentional) reversal of international tradition, which often associates red with left-leaning parties and blue with the right. ”It’s weird, is all,” wrote a blogger at dailykos.com, a political Web journal. ”I’d like some accountability if people are going to start messing with cultural symbolism willy-nilly.”
The cultural symbolism did indeed get reversed. Around the world (and especially in Europe), red has been used pretty consistently for the leftist/liberal parties, and blue for the right side/conservatives. It was during the US national election of 2000 that the term “red state” got coined and connected to Republicans, and even four years previously the color coding had been inconsistent, with the donkey and the elephant representing the parties instead.
As the left makes more and more obvious their connection with, and influence by, the communist and socialist groups, the color clashes can be jarring. Here, for example, you see the communists and unions (not quite a redundant phrase) marching together, and the union leaders are carrying the bright red communist flag.
Lenin and Che Guevara were popular images. The teachers’ unions wear bright red shirts “in solidarity with [their] socialist brothers and sisters,” says their newsletter.
They are hardly advertising their connection to conservative politics. (As an aside, I remember when teachers could teach math, science and English. Now it’s “Peace and Justice” - and the materials they use are profanity-riddled attacks on the United States.)
I’d certainly like to see the red-blue color pattern reversed. Let the left have the red back, as they have used it since the 1800s. I’d darken the conservative blue to resemble that of the US star field, while staying away from union purples.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)