4 ms·

Very true, "red" and "blue" had no political meaning in my childhood. Another source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-republicans-were-blue-and-demo

Very true, "red" and "blue" had no political meaning in my childhood. Another source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-republicans-were-blue-and-democrats-were-red-104176297/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-republicans-were...

arittr 5y ago
This is probably the single most impactful thing I’ve read on HN. My mind is blown.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Very true, “red” and “blue” had no political meaning in my childhood “Red” had a very long established political meaning before the new one for “Republican” was adopted, visible in phrases like “better dead than Red”. “Blue” didn’t, though.
- bradknowles 5y ago
  You never heard of a “blue dog democrat”?
  - hnbad 5y ago
    I'm not sure if you're joking but the only reference I can find is the "Blue Dog Coalition" which takes its name from "being choked blue" and the term "yellow dog Democrat", which in turn seems to refer to what now goes by "vote blue no matter who" in the sense of "they would vote for a yellow dog as long as it is Democrat", which in turn uses "yellow dog" to refer to "low value" American dogs with no genetic link to any established European dog breed. Whew, what a ride for a non-American to figure out what any of these idioms are supposed to mean.
    - Tagbert 5y ago
      “blue dog democrat” Was a term for some conservatives, mostly living in the US south, who were registered as Democrats. When Nixon executed his “southern strategy”, many of those democrats switch to the Republican Party and are probably a big reason why that party switched from a moderately conservative, corporatist party to what it is today.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    There are a number of noun phrases with colors on them that have political meaning, that's different than the color alone, not in combination with the modified noun, having political meaning.
- hnbad 5y ago
  The color red seems to politically date back to the French revolution and has since been mostly associated with the far left of the political spectrum in seemingly all places except the modern US (thanks, GOP). Likewise brown is typically associated with fascists and nazis (due to the "brownshirts"). Annoyingly my home country (Germany) uses both black and blue to indicate conservative or right-wing parties. Conservatives being indicated in blue seems to be somewhat common internationally but black is historically tied to anarchism (which uses a black flag to be the flag of all people that no one country can claim, unlike the white flag of surrender).
  - b3orn 5y ago
    I think only the CDU is black, their sister party the CSU is blue, except when they're shown together as the Union, then it's black again.
    - hnbad 5y ago
      Yeah, but only because you can't really have "shades" of black. The CSU and AfD are both indicated as blue the same way the SPD and Die Linke are both indicated as red, but usually different shades (or e.g. using magenta for Die Linke, which is even sillier as Die Linke is to the left of the SPD). Every party has an official color of course, but they're not always used in reporting. For example, while the CSU uses blue for its logo, the CDU uses red but still is traditionally represented in black.
  - Tagbert 5y ago
    That far left political party associated with red in other countries barely exists in in the US. The GOP being “red” and Democrats being “blue” were not colors chosen by the parties. In the seventies, Television broadcasters started using colors to identify voting trends and soon enough they all settled on those particular colors for the parties. There may have been some attempt to not use red for Democrats to avoid reinforcing the “lefty” stereotype.
- dllthomas 5y ago
  "Her eldest son bled the family white, her second son blew everything and fled, but imagine the duchess's feelings when her youngest son went red!"

arittr 5y ago

This is probably the single most impactful thing I’ve read on HN. My mind is blown.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Very true, “red” and “blue” had no political meaning in my childhood “Red” had a very long established political meaning before the new one for “Republican” was adopted, visible in phrases like “better dead than Red”. “Blue” didn’t, though.

bradknowles 5y ago
You never heard of a “blue dog democrat”?
- hnbad 5y ago
  I'm not sure if you're joking but the only reference I can find is the "Blue Dog Coalition" which takes its name from "being choked blue" and the term "yellow dog Democrat", which in turn seems to refer to what now goes by "vote blue no matter who" in the sense of "they would vote for a yellow dog as long as it is Democrat", which in turn uses "yellow dog" to refer to "low value" American dogs with no genetic link to any established European dog breed. Whew, what a ride for a non-American to figure out what any of these idioms are supposed to mean.
  - Tagbert 5y ago
    “blue dog democrat” Was a term for some conservatives, mostly living in the US south, who were registered as Democrats. When Nixon executed his “southern strategy”, many of those democrats switch to the Republican Party and are probably a big reason why that party switched from a moderately conservative, corporatist party to what it is today.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  There are a number of noun phrases with colors on them that have political meaning, that's different than the color alone, not in combination with the modified noun, having political meaning.
hnbad 5y ago
The color red seems to politically date back to the French revolution and has since been mostly associated with the far left of the political spectrum in seemingly all places except the modern US (thanks, GOP). Likewise brown is typically associated with fascists and nazis (due to the "brownshirts"). Annoyingly my home country (Germany) uses both black and blue to indicate conservative or right-wing parties. Conservatives being indicated in blue seems to be somewhat common internationally but black is historically tied to anarchism (which uses a black flag to be the flag of all people that no one country can claim, unlike the white flag of surrender).
- b3orn 5y ago
  I think only the CDU is black, their sister party the CSU is blue, except when they're shown together as the Union, then it's black again.
  - hnbad 5y ago
    Yeah, but only because you can't really have "shades" of black. The CSU and AfD are both indicated as blue the same way the SPD and Die Linke are both indicated as red, but usually different shades (or e.g. using magenta for Die Linke, which is even sillier as Die Linke is to the left of the SPD). Every party has an official color of course, but they're not always used in reporting. For example, while the CSU uses blue for its logo, the CDU uses red but still is traditionally represented in black.
- Tagbert 5y ago
  That far left political party associated with red in other countries barely exists in in the US. The GOP being “red” and Democrats being “blue” were not colors chosen by the parties. In the seventies, Television broadcasters started using colors to identify voting trends and soon enough they all settled on those particular colors for the parties. There may have been some attempt to not use red for Democrats to avoid reinforcing the “lefty” stereotype.
dllthomas 5y ago
"Her eldest son bled the family white, her second son blew everything and fled, but imagine the duchess's feelings when her youngest son went red!"