So in the majority of the world political parties that lean to the right use the color red and right leaning use blue. My question is why are we the other way around? This has always puzzled me.
I don’t know if it became universal after 2000, but in the US, the GOP became red and the Dems became blue because the electoral map on Election Night had the parties indicated by those colors (they started using red and blue on electoral maps on TV in 1984 (maybe even in 1980…1984 is the first I remember), IIRC, and alternated every election.
Since that election was so close and so contested, “red states” and “blue states” entered the national lexicon.
That’s for America…I can’t speak to the rest of the world.
I know Dave Leip does the reverse on his website.
Go to the LBC radio UK website and listen to James O Brien’s Mystery Hour from yesterday, this very question was asked.
I guarantee its the best 1 hour of radio you will listen to all week.
Do you seriously think the media would have established Democrats as red, the symbol of communism and socialism?
Yes always the media conspiracy when the real answer is far more simple.
Actually it goes back to 1976 at the earliest so far. I will check 1972 next.
Did I mention “conspiracy”?
From everything I have read it was just a throw away decision by one of the networks.
Red is associated with Labour in the UK as the color is connected to the angry worker movement in France which used red as it symbolized the blood of the worker. This was also adopted by socialism for the same reason.
Edited to add angry worker movement goes back to the late 1700s.I remember this from history lessons at school.
Yes you did.
No. I was talking about motivation.
Actually my explanation was too overly simplistic.
You POSITED a conspiracy.
And as my latest post shows, your supposition is not based in actual fact.
Now I am sure instead of admitting this, you will double down.
It wasn’t a throw away decision. Republicans where always blue since Lincoln…it was their color all throughout 20th century.
Red, the labor color was democrats. But libs had a problem with it because of it’s close association with commies and other dictators.
Yes, I do. At the very least, the conservative outlets in the media should have no qualms about doing so.
I have not seen anything that indicates the dems influenced the decision of the networks. Where did you read that?
Then why did it change? If they were so satisfied with red why did the networks changed it?
This is from The Smithsonian magazine
“Before the epic election of 2000, there was no uniformity in the maps that television stations, newspapers or magazines used to illustrate presidential elections. Pretty much everyone embraced red and blue, but which color represented which party varied, sometimes by organization, sometimes by election cycle.”
Okay saying i know definitively is wrong but from what I have read neither party really wanted to be associated with red because of its connections with communism.
Though as I said before the color red has historically been connected with the blood of workers hence why communists and socialists adopted the color.
That happened in the first Bush election. If I remember correctly. Before that each network would have different colors they chose abitraily. Then they all seemed to get together and make reps red and the dems blue. Probably one of the first acts of the fake news. I bet the main reason was to divide people on permanent basis. The other guess is the left in America did nor want to be associated with the 100 million murdered by red flag leftists in the 20th century.
If you ask some leftist right now they will tell you the mass murder Stalin was conservative and so was Moa. So,it’s all part of brain washing the complainant people and rewriting history.