View Full Version : How did "RED" become conservative?
comodin
06-10-2018, 06:18 PM
For most of my life, I've heard that "Communists" were "Reds", socialists were "pinkos". And "blue" was associated with the police, the "forces of Law and Order", and conservative ideologies.
Suddenly, these colors were reversed, much to my confusion. Does anyone else find this confusing? How did this happen, and why does no one comment about it? Does anyone suspect deliberate obfuscation?
Barry
06-11-2018, 01:34 PM
The TV networks have standardized on show Republican states as Red and Democratic states as Blue around 1992.
Here's a good Washington Post article about how that came to pass:
Red vs. Blue: A history of how we use political colors (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/08/red-vs-blue-a-brief-history-of-how-we-use-political-colors/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.be205ce0ecbc)
For most of my life, I've heard that "Communists" were "Reds", socialists were "pinkos". And "blue" was associated with the police, the "forces of Law and Order", and conservative ideologies.
Suddenly, these colors were reversed, much to my confusion. Does anyone else find this confusing? How did this happen, and why does no one comment about it? Does anyone suspect deliberate obfuscation?
Dorothy Friberg
06-11-2018, 03:25 PM
Yeah, and how did purple become gay?
rossmen
06-11-2018, 09:13 PM
Very interesting question and Wikipedia is awesome. Turns out this visual consensus is quite recent, developed from the 2000 election debacle, and controversial!
For most of my life, I've heard that "Communists" were "Reds", socialists were "pinkos". And "blue" was associated with the police, the "forces of Law and Order", and conservative ideologies.
Suddenly, these colors were reversed, much to my confusion. Does anyone else find this confusing? How did this happen, and why does no one comment about it? Does anyone suspect deliberate obfuscation?