“Not I”, Said The Little Red Hen

Did you ever wonder who made up the color designations of blue for Democrats and red for Republicans?

Most people, under the age of 50, would answer that it’s because R is an easier letter to remember as in Red and Republicans.

They would be wrong.

Historically, during the Cold War (until the last election), the color red was used as a derogatory term, to define a person, group, or political party.

The following paragraph is a quote from an October 12, 2015, Smithsonian Magazine article to that effect:

“For years, both parties would do red and blue maps, but they always made the other guys red’, said Chuck Todd, political director and chief White House correspondent for NBC News. “During the Cold War, who wanted to be red?”

Indeed, prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union, “red was a term of derision”, noted Mitchell Stephens, a New York University professor of journalism and author of A History of News”.

Meanwhile back at the ranch…

Remember that inconvenient word “liberal” Democrats used, about five plus years ago, to define themselves? Do I mean until the meaning of liberal as in, “open to the ideas of other people”, became too inconvenient?

Yup that’s it!!

That’s when liberals decided for two reasons to change their definition of liberals to progressives.

You see, in those (not so long ago) olden days, liberals were thought of as open to the thought of socialism (and socialism is linked to Marxism and then that slippery slope got them right smack dab into the mud of communism, which ironically, dispenses with all liberal ideas.

And if we go back to the Chuck Todd, Smithsonian quote (above): “…..they (the liberals) always wanted to make the other guys red” because “red was a term of derision”…. the color of the artistic rendition of the communists’ symbol (the hammer and sickle).

If this wasn’t planned, by the Democratic Party, then why not keep the color red? And why the shell game of changing their description of liberal to progressive? Could it be that the old Liberals (who are no longer liberal) hope to pretend that the ideas of socialism, Marxism, and Communism, or red as their team color, don’t really exist? And, if the old Liberals can call themselves by the bright and shiny, new penny, name of Progressives, perhaps their handlers hope to game themselves to victory in every election, in two ways:

one, liberals can dispense with having to be open to anyone else’s ideas and just plod on with their progressive agenda which is whatever’s good for the cause, (torpedos be damned!)

and

two, now that they have a new name, they can also give themselves a new color -as in true blue patriotism.

And, if it’s only a game (or is it?) they only have to play the part of true blue patriots, but not really believe as true blue patriots do.

And then, by erasing any trace of their original political meaning and color, the result will absolutely scrub clean any “remembrances of” (nasty) “things past”.

In fact, better yet, while we’re having fun with coloring, boys and girls, we can really mix things up and give that other group the color of red.

Who wants that nasty color anyway? (as the commentators asked). And, if it’s only a game the Republicans would be really petty, poor sports, to squawk about such a silly thing as a group color.

The problem now is the Republicans should have been really petty, poor sports, because had they been, then, the nee’ progressives, would now be wearing their original color of red (which is actually their “true blue” color).

But with the Republicans having been, and now being, good sports about such a seemingly “silly” thing, which wasn’t, and isn’t, silly at all in political PR parlance, the way it is now, we’re all sort of in the middle of an Orwellian Universe.

Remember George Orwell’s 1984? That’s the book that told us to be very afraid when the meanings of symbols and their ownership, facts that you thought were, aren’t; and all of the facts that you thought weren’t, are… shall we say, mixed up?

Just think how conservatives now feel about having their true blue patriotism given to the real Reds. And how the real Reds are hoping to laugh their way to victory for more elections because so many of their unsuspecting followers think its all just a child’s coloring game, when it’s really a deadly game and the color red will once again belong to the hammer and sickle of the communists, who hope, at the finish line of the “game”, to finish off democracy here and in Israel.

Alright, boys and girls… you can put your two crayons down now and when you grow up, to understand this deadly political game, you should throw away the one that colors you into a stop sign corner to think for yourselves.

Photo by Ed Leszczynskl on Unsplash