Following Thanksgiving this year, I went through some old possessions that were still stashed away at my father's house. One item that caught my attention was a special issue of Time magazine from the fall of 1996, with coverage of the election results and a retrospective of the presidential campaign. While the time-warp of election coverage was fascinating, the most striking element was tucked in the back without any particular emphasis:
Nine years later, viewing an electoral map with "reversed" colors is somehow startling. Dislocating. And, I believe, absolutely essential.
Redshifting
Prior to the 2000 election, there was no consistently followed association between political parties and single colors. With the advent of color in print and broadcast media, the graphic design of electoral charts and maps was often arbitrary or purely aesthetic. To the extent that there was any meaningful association between politics and color, it followed the European convention of red for the political left and blue for the political right. Consequently, the Democratic Party was more often depicted with red, and the Republican Party was more often depicted with blue.
Why the colors "switched" in 2000 isn't entirely clear. A majority of broadcast media seem to have decided to follow a uniform color scheme that year, and that color scheme was cemented as the standard during the unending coverage of the disputed presidential election and recount process. The media narrative focused on the narrowly divided electorate, and the terms "red state" and "blue state" entered the vocabularies of political commentators. The very idea of "red states" and "blue states" became increasingly popular, with tremendous media reinforcement in the 2004 election cycle.
The conceptual origins of the "red state vs. blue state divide" have been the subject of some commentary, though much of it fairly superficial. In 2004, articles in the AIGA Journal of Design, the New York Times, and the Washington Post considered the question of color association in politics, taking into account everything from historical symbolism to color psychology and the left-right arrangement of the electromagnetic spectrum. The stories focus on the question of why a particular color is now associated with a particular party, and whether that association is itself positive or negative. Unfortunately, each of the articles misses the point.
The conventional association between single colors and political parties is new. However, if it were simply a matter of media outlets arriving at a consensus on a color scheme, it wouldn't matter to anyone outside their graphic design departments. The color association that emerged in the aftermath of the 2000 election is important because of its relationship to another phenomenon: mental gerrymandering.
Mental Gerrymandering
The color scheme of the 2000 election was not simply a visual change, but a linguistic and conceptual one. The new consistency in visual representation enabled political commentators to very easily make attention-grabbing generalizations about entire states and regions of the country. No longer were pundits only talking about "Reagan Democrats" and "states that went for Clinton in '96," but "red states" and "blue states." Florida and Utah, Michigan and Massachusetts - no distinctions made in terms of the margin of victory, the appeal of specific candidates, the urban/rural divide, or the role of local politics. "Red" or "blue." As of November, 2000. The outcome of that presidential race in each state, however narrow, was assumed not only to be of broader cultural significance, but also to provide normative insight to the state's political future. After all, calling a state "red" or "blue" is of little use unless it says something about the next election as well.
Gerrymandering is the process of manipulating political divisions for electoral advantage, typically through redistricting. The result is uncompetitive elections that favor incumbents and the existing balance of power. The "redistricting" that took place following the 2000 election created mental boundaries - psychological associations between the residents of a state and a particular political party. While there are certainly discernible realities of political history, it is quite a different matter to talk about West Virginia as "a state that went for Bush in 2000" than to call it "a red state." It's worth noting that conservative commentators did not enthusiastically identify Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana as "blue states" (to use the current color scheme) when they voted for Clinton in the 1996 election. To the extent that such terminology is more normative than descriptive, it's important to question which particular status quo has been elevated to the norm. While the "red state / blue state" dichotomy appears to have emerged haphazardly, there is no doubt that the Republican Party has emphasized the electoral alignment of 2000 to build its Congressional majority in 2002 and re-elect President Bush in 2004.
It's easy to understand the tendency of mass media to oversimplify, but the swift acceptance of the "red state / blue state" dichotomy by the political parties themselves is worth considering. Just as with the gerrymandering of legislative districts, the mental gerrymander of the country into "red states" and "blue states" serves the interests of incumbents on both sides of the aisle. After all, if there is any principle that can be said to unify elected officials, it is the desire to reinforce the electoral conditions that put them in office. For the national parties, red/blue mental gerrymandering aids in fundraising through the increased self-identification of constituent bases, and it facilitates the redirection of resources away from "safe" areas. And just as with the gerrymandering of legislative districts, it deeply undermines the health of our democracy.
Changing our colors
There are a few things we can each do to help repair the mental gerrymander:
- Don't talk about politics in terms of "red" and "blue."
Red/blue terminology has an undeniable appeal to partisans on both sides, particularly when used in conjunction with discussions about the "culture war." This topic is important enough to avoid making crass generalizations, and avoiding the "red state / blue state" terminology will improve the level of discourse.
- Talk to others when they use the terms.
Take the opportunity to discuss why you don't like to talk about "red states" and "blue states."
- Put quotes around the terms if you reference them online and in other writing.
The way we frame ideas - even in an insular online community setting - can have a significant impact.
- Challenge the convention.
If you're making an electoral chart or map, reverse the colors. Use shades of green. Think purple. Just make sure you challenge the prevailing ideas about "redness" and "blueness."
- Write to elected officials and media outlets.
Make the case for burying the "red state / blue state" meme.