True colors

During the 2000 presidential election recount battle, the media swapped out the longstanding political colors for Republicans and Democrats. Democrat-turned-pundit Tim Russert reportedly was first to coin the terms “red state” for Republican and “blue state” for Democratic strongholds. Unfortunately, Fox News and conservatives also embraced this swap.

This act essentially rebranded Democrats away from their 20th century left-wing affiliations. A 200-year global tradition of blue signifying conservatism and red signifying liberalism thus ended in America. “Red state” and “blue state” became buzzwords among pundits and political scientists to dumb down their analyses of America’s richly nuanced civic culture.

Republicans and conservatives should not have gone along with this so easily. The history of these colors recommends that they should at least demand that their own favorite media sources return the GOP to its noble blue color.

Colors have meaning. Uniforms and banners on the battlefield have identified friend and foe since the beginning of human history. Most of history linked colors to nations and dynasties. The most famous was England’s 15th century dynastic war between the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster.

In the late 18th century, blue became the first modern political color. It was worn as boutonnieres by British parliamentary candidates supporting Pitt the Younger, the leader who helped William Wilberforce end slavery. Blue evolved into the permanent color of the Conservative Party of Britain and of center-right movements around the world, including the Republican Party in America.

Radicals and pre-communist activists did not have their own color until the French Revolution. On Aug. 10, 1792, anti-monarchist mobs swarmed the Tuileries Palace. King Louis XVI, who had fled the palace with his family, sent back orders for his Swiss Guard not to fire upon the attackers, as previous incursions had ended peacefully when moderate voices prevailed. But not this time. The mob slaughtered hundreds of surrendering guardsmen and then sought out servants and kitchen staff to tear apart, limb from limb. One observer called it a “mad festival of blood.” The king and his family would later be imprisoned in a fortified monastery with a guillotine looming before them.

The mob stripped the blood-soaked red uniforms from the Swiss Guard and paraded the shards on long pikes as revolutionary banners. Thus, red became the color of the most radical factions of the French Revolution and of left-wing movements to this day.

Remember that the next time a conservative uses “red state” to describe Republicans and conservatives.

Scot Faulkner served as chief administrative officer of the U.S. House of Representatives and director of personnel to President Reagan. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions for editorials, available at this link.