Colors in politics

For a very long time, red has been the color of the Left.  But in America today it is the color of Republicans.  How come? It was a bit of Leftist "cleverness" by some media types in (I think) the year 2000, when they put up TV projections of the vote on election night that reversed what was customary and displayed GOP-leaning States in red -- part of the unending quest for change that characterizes Leftists.

In the graphic below, an election-night projection from the recent British election, you will note that party colors follow tradition in Britain.  Conservatives are true blue.  The only dubious bit about British practice below is showing the Scottish Nationalists in yellow.  Why?  The only reason I can think of is that it is more polite than showing them in their true colors -- Fascist brown.



Given the love of change for the sake of change that we often seem to see on the Left, I wonder if some bright spark will in due course revert to the original colors for TV displays?

Being a male, blue is of course my favorite color so I am rather pleased to see in operetta that blue eyes are often described as treu, variously translatable as loyal, faithful, reliable, honorable, trustworthy.  I say more about that here.

Operettas all date from before WWII, however, so they could say things that would not be allowed today.  Just mentioning blue eyes is probably "racist" these days. I seem to have gotten away with talking about iris pigmentation, however  -- which is the same thing.



And we all know of course that blacks are no longer "colored" -- the NAACP excepted.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).