Comments on: Raise The Black Banner

By: conradg

conradg — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:09:33 +0000

I think the color scheme sticks because of the emotional associations with the colors, not the past political associations. Red is the color of anger, of warning, danger, fear, aggression, strength, and for the last decade this well describes Republicans. Blue, on the other hand, describes a kind of coolness, calm, passivity, even weakness, which is what the Democrats have been. So because of this emotional association that generally reflects the emotional qualities of the two parties, we’ve stuck with these colors.

By: bayesian

bayesian — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:05:46 +0000

@GOM -

It’s http://www.uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/ARTICLES/redblue.php

for some reason our host’s editor put a nofollow tag in the html

By: Grumpy Old Man

Grumpy Old Man — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:55:53 +0000

The link “another account” appears to be broken.

By: cusanus

cusanus — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:04:54 +0000

Red yang; blue yin. Red hot; blue cool. Red in your face; blue passive, go with the flow. Regardless of the historical associations, the color scheme definitely fits the public face of each of the parties since they came into use in the nineties.

By: Peter Hoh

Peter Hoh — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:19:49 +0000

I thought the modern color system had to do with both Republican and red starting with the same letter.

By: Daniel Larison

Daniel Larison — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:04:16 +0000

Here is another account of the evolution of the color-coding.

By: James Kabala

James Kabala — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:01:45 +0000

Jacobus7: I know Time (my main source for political news when I was a teenager) always used blue for Republicans and red for Democrats, even in 2000 and even (stubbornly) in the 2002 mid-terms, but they gave in in 2004. Reference books like the Encyclopedia of Congressional Districts (can’t remember if that’s the exact title) also did.

Wikipedia claims that NBC is 1976 was the first to use a color map on TV, with blue for Republicans and red for Democrats, but that by the mid-1990s most (but not all) networks had adopted the reverse scheme: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states (See “Origin of current color scheme” subheading.)

By: Howard J. Harrison

Howard J. Harrison — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:53:49 +0000

Somehow I do not remember that red used to stand for the Democratic party, but neither do I doubt your interesting recollection that it did. It does make one remember however that in the nineteenth century the Democratic party was the conservative and the Republican, the radical party—respectively blue and red in the old European sense.

By: jacobus7

jacobus7 — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:53:59 +0000

“a completely arbitrary change of colors”

I’ll nitpick a little bit: I think that, previously, the networks had used blue for incumbents and red for challengers, but I can’t seem to find any proof for that anywhere.

By: mbtogut

mbtogut — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:32:16 +0000

Ross needs to find something more important to stress out over.

By: Grumpy Old Man

Grumpy Old Man — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:31:37 +0000

You’re right. There’s a weird color switch. The British Labour Party used to sing:

“The workers’ flag is deepest red,
And shrouded oft our martyred dead.
So lift the scarlet banner high,
Beneath her folds we’ll live and die.”

If they had kept blue, he GOP could sing:

The bourgeois flag of deepest blue
Means more for us and less for you
But come along and vote for us
We’ll come by limo, you by bus.

By: ChrisWWW

ChrisWWW — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:01:45 +0000

Kind of a weird thing to complain about. At least the GOP gets to be the friendly and giant elephant. The Democrats are stuck with the ass.

By: tenaciousd

tenaciousd — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:28:27 +0000

Hey, come on now. Which American party has been the more “social democratic” party of the last decade? Give credit (ahem!) where it’s due. Medicare Part-D and the largest nationalizations in modern history represent the triumph of social liberalism in America. The Democrats have been the party of trimming and surpluses.