Red fish? Blue fish?

Why do political parties have colours and what should they be?

When you get to be a certain age, some things that changed a long, long time ago still don’t feel right. And when maybe you have a little too much time on your hands, they can really stick in your craw. Don’t ask me about the metric system, or bilingualism in Canada.

One such (petty) grievance is the colours of political parties. To me, blue is conservative and red is ‘the other guys’. It’s not complicated, yet… that’s not what you have in America. Why is that?

This article in The Smithsonian traces the crazy flip flopping path of the “reds” and the “blues” in the U.S. From the 70s through the 90s, it seems the media just made it up. But since 2000 they have managed to lock in: “R” Red for Republican, as one astute media announcer once reasoned. (And “B” for Bemocrat:)

In England, Conservatives are blue and Labour red, which makes sense for a host of ideological reasons, but also perhaps because blue is a retiring sort of stable, quieting colour whereas red is warm, advancing, active. (Apparently, it hasn’t been quite so simple there either according to this informative CNN report.")

In Canada, we hold to the British system. The Liberal Party of Canada is red. They are now joined at the hip with the Democrats, who lean more left, socialistically-speaking, and should be coloured red but it was taken so they ended up with the next best thing, orange. And the Conservative Party of Canada, when they do use colour - they are not what you would call culturally sophisticated - it’s blue.

You have to love the Greens, who got it right from the get go. Worldwide the party skews towards the greenery of the landscape, a.k.a. the environment. A’course that could be changing. As the planet heats up, will the Greens turn brown and yellow, then orange, and red, to end up burning hot white?

Let’s get to the ‘toons already!

OK, so the point of this rant was to show you some older work where I was wrestling with the red/blue thing. That would be around the last US election.

I love the idea of transformations. With a lot of work, this could be an animation. And I do love a Viking in any context.

These two aren’t exactly palimpsests, which, also with a lot of work, they might be, but I’m sure you get the flip flop idea. (Franklin wanted the representative bird of the US to be the turkey.)

These two jolly/angry fellows sum up nicely I think the kind of duplicitousness that pervades politics these days.

P.S.

Ya, well, whatever your stripe, it’s a pretty smelly business.

P.P.S.

And frankly, for some of us, maybe it’s all getting just a bit too colourful out there.

P.P.P.S.

Before I go, I’d like to give a couple of shoutouts this week to two fabulous artists.

Comedian and cartoonist extraordinaire Jason Chatfield has just launched a new stack, Process Junkie, where hey, maybe even old timers comme moi might find ways to get better. (We live in hope.)

And Scott Menchin, whose website of classy, smart work is a genuine pleasure to peruse. Take a few minutes to give yourself a treat.

Thanks for reading. Have a great week.