How did "RED" become conservative?

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?

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

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Posted in reply to the post by comodin:

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?

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Yeah, and how did purple become gay?

Very interesting question and Wikipedia is awesome. Turns out this visual consensus is quite recent, developed from the 2000 election debacle, and controversial!

Quote:

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Posted in reply to the post by comodin:

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?

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