Hijacking Liberalism, and Blue States

By Douglas V. Gibbs

During the early 1900s, progressivism had become so unpopular, due to failed policies, and failed ideas, that the leftists were desperate to find a way to deflect the negativism.  Their laissez faire opposition believed in the principles of the United States Constitution, limited government, private property, rule of law based on a written standard (like a constitution), a free market, and the idea that local issues should only be handled by the local governments.  The progressives disagreed with every aspect of what the "liberals" believed in, but they weren't interested in their platform, they wanted the popularity of the "Classical Liberals."  So, the progressives hijacked the name of the constitutionalists, and began calling themselves "liberals."  Eventually, the classical liberals found a new name, for they were no longer trying to liberate America from the tyranny of Europe, and more specifically Great Britain.  The Revolution had been much longer than a century before, at that point, and so now it was about protecting and preserving the American System as it was founded, promoting liberty, and conserving the principles that had built America into a successful nation with a prosperous, industrious, and innovative economy.  So, they began to call themselves Conservatives.

In the midst of the Cold War the liberal progressives of the Democrat Party found themselves in yet another pinch.  The political party was unpopular, after the failed policies of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter, and the questionable antics of Bill Clinton that only gave him some popularity because he was willing to give in to the Republican Congress on occasion.  Ronald Reagan was a very popular President of the United States, and reestablished conservatism (classical liberalism) as a major force in politics.  The color schemes had been largely, with a few wild cards in the media, blue for Republicans, and red for Democrats.  Historically, the color scheme made sense, when one considers that the color of leftism in Europe was red.  Since the Democrats leaned to the left, the color red made all of the sense in the world.

The color scheme flipped, flopped, and changed, sometimes, depending on the network, so though the red-for-democrat and blue-for-republican scheme was for the most part the rule, the networks were not consistent with it, and the differences caused confusion.

In 2000, for whatever reason, the networks twisted the color scheme.  Out of it, after a lengthy election, the Republicans became Red for good, and the Democrats were to be permanently painted Blue.  Liberal website Mother Jones says that the 2000 Election lasted so long with the "hanging chad" controversy, that we looked at that map longer than any electoral map in history, and in that map, Democrats were blue, and Republicans were red, and those colors became seared into our memory forever.  The New York Times claimed that color scheme made sense, when one considered that both Republican, and Red, begins with the letter "R".  The terminology, "Red States" and "Blue States" evolved from there.  One must ask, however, was this yet another hijacking in order to turn an unpopular Democrat Party into a more popular one by simply stealing a popular branding aspect of the opposing party?

It is convenient for the leftists.  Satan is supposed to be fiery red, and racism starts with "R".

According to Joseph Farah of World Net Daily, the more sinister argument makes more sense.  He wrote, "The former system made more sense and was deliberately changed by media partisans who didn’t like to suggest Democrats should be associated with the color red.  I’m not making this up. In fact, even the predictably leeward-tilting Wikipedia acknowledges the newly adopted U.S. hue standard stands in stark contrast to the system of political colors in most other countries that bother to hold elections. . . What’s a little more surprising, however, is how easily Republicans fell in line, apparently without realizing the reason they went from blue to red overnight. There’s even a Republican-leaning opinion site called RedState.com. How shortsighted and gullible can you get?

"To understand the history behind this change, let’s take a look at what was happening on television before 1980. Again, according to the usually unreliable Wikipedia, “In 1976, John Chancellor, the anchorman for the ‘NBC Nightly News,’ asked his network’s engineers to construct a large electronic map of the USA. The map was placed in the network’s election-night news studio. If Jimmy Carter, the Democratic candidate that year, won a state, it would light up in red; if Gerald Ford, the Republican, carried a state, it would light up in blue.”

"Made sense. Jimmy Carter was a progenitor of Barack Obama. And even though Gerald Ford was too dumb to understand that Eastern Europe and specifically Poland was, at the time, under Soviet domination, no one would ever accuse him of being a commie.

"The next election cycle, famous for Ronald Reagan’s Republican landslide, was also memorable for David Brinkley’s observation that the election board looked like a “sea of blue.”

"That made even more sense because Reagan’s convictions were decidedly and unabashedly anti-red.

"There were deviations at some other networks, but the standard remained Democrat-red and Republican-blue for three more presidential elections. It was understandable. There was little confusion about it. It all made sense.

"Democrats were at least soft on communism and socialism in the post JFK-LBJ world. Republicans tended to be anti-communist. It was all perfectly understandable, accurate and had both historical precedent to support it as well as contemporary parallels in other countries."

The media, in their effort to protect the public from seeing yet another avalanche of Democrat Party failures, hijacked what was popular, and then used it to the fullest extent of its use.

What is interesting, is that to cover up the unpopularity and failures of their policies in today's political arena, the liberal democrats have begun to make another change.  Now, they are beginning to abandon the term "liberal," and are starting to call themselves "progressives."

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

What is Classical Liberalism - Mises Daily

It's time to reclaim Classical Liberalism from the Far Left - Pocket Full of Liberty

Red States and Blue States - Wikipedia

Why Progressives, and Not Liberals - Townhall

The Story Behind Red States and Blue States - Mother Jones

RNC Adopts The Color Blue, Launches New Logo Democrats Can Now Be The Party of Red - GOP

How Red States Turned Blue, and Vice Versa - World Net Daily

Why are Republicans Red and Democrats Blue? - The Verge