This has bothered me for the longest time. I have a very clear recollection of election night coverage during the 70’s and 80’s and uniformly the Republican states were blue and the Democrat states red. I always assumed this to be more of an allusion to the use of the term red for communism, which seemed more closely aligned with Democrat politics. Blue represented a more calm, analytical approach to policy, and was seen as patriotic and traditional, and more closely described Republican politics.
In my opinion the red-blue switcheroo is simply another part of the liberal propaganda smear campaign to depict anything conservative or republican as extreme, radical and out of the mainstream of American tradition. This campaign, with hearty collaboration by the news/entertainment media, has been amazingly effective.
I know very conservative people who proudly declare themselves to be “red state” republicans and radical or far right conservatives, when their positions just represent what is historically normal and mainstream. It is very frustrating, particularly when conservatives begin to concede the arena of political terminology to the liberals, and accept the labels placed on them by their adversaries.
It is also a manifestation of a phenomenon I have observed for a couple of decades: that is the diversion tactic employed by the left in which they make ad hominem attacks and attach labels like “extreme” or “radical” or “outrageous” to describe conservatives to divert attention from their own radical and extreme agenda.
The first step in reversing this distortion of who Republicans or conservatives are would be to withdraw any cooperation with the liberal nomenclature. The challenges to the “moderators” of the recent CNBC debate is a good example. We need to see more of it.
Dear all, I apologies for the crummy formatting! This is my first post on Free Republic but it won’t be my last! I think I made the mistake of not taking out the hyperlinks, will correct in the future. You can see the original with sources — including visuals == at www.repealfatca.com, subpage TheJIM!gram. Note other commentaries on 1. “It’s the Cloture, Stupid!” (How to defund Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, amnesty via Obama’s pen,etc.); 2. The disappearance of the founding American ethnos from our super-legislature (a/k/a the Supreme Court); and 3. BENGHAZI: What Neither Hillary not the GOP Want to Talk About.