January 3, 2008
Shouldn’t Red States be Blue?
Who decided on the color-coding for red states and blue states?
Universally, red tends to be the political color used to represent Labor/Socialist parties where blue tends to represent Conservative/Right-Wingers. You'll find this trend to be globally consistent... except for in America. As I researched this, I found out that only in 2000 was this switch made. There was no real consistency in the prior elections, and as recently as 1984, Reagan's landslide victory was painted in a "sea of blue" on a popular NBC map.
I haven't been able to find out who made the change (readers?), but it was likely a media decision, and frankly, it's pretty brilliant for the Democrats.
In terms of psychology, people like blue more than red. But, isn't it just a bit confusing to go against the global politically symbolism of these colors?
And I understand that Democrats would be apprehensive aligning themselves with a traditional color used to represent Communism, but it makes at least a LITTLE more sense logically, no?
0 comments