29 May
2025
29 May
'25
2:48 p.m.
On Thu, May 29, 2025 at 8:23 AM Paul Winalski <paul.winalski(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, May 28, 2025 at 5:16 PM Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen(a)sdaoden.eu> wrote:
TV Coverage. In the 76 election, some networks used blue/red and
others used red/blue. This cause a lot of confusion on election night,
so they got together and decided on red - GOP, blue Dem, likely in an
anti-nod to communism. Everybody know the GOP wasn't communists, but
they liked to occasionally lob that attack at the democrats. By having
red GOP / blue Dem, the networks made a conscious choice to not
reinforce the GOP charge...
Warner
This entire thing was then removed with the words "Here it smells
like red socks", referring to a decade old (around Y2K) right-wing
aka republican propaganda tour against "red socks". (In Germany
left wing is red, right wing is black/blue.)
Red was also traditionally considered the color of the left wing, especially Communism,
here in the US. During the 1950s the start of the Cold War led to a lot of fear of
pro-Soviet Communists taking over Us government and private institutions. This was known
as the Red Scare. The slogan among the most militant anti-Communists was "better
dead than Red".
Somehow this color scheme got switched around in the current liberal vs. conservative
ideological divide. Red is now the color of the right wing and Blue is the color of the
left wing. I don't know why that change happened.