Tag: Jimmy Carter

Blue of course symbolizes the Democratic party, while red represents the GOP. But for years, both major parties used the full panoply of American red, white and blue for their own self-identification. With the spread of color television in the late 1960s, color-coded electoral maps were incorporated into election coverage, but neither red nor blue had been assigned a permanent side. So depending on the election or the network, red and blue were variously assigned to Democrats and Republicans. That year, the networks had chosen red to represent states won by the Republicans and blue to represent states won by the Democrats. However, by the end of Election Night, neither George W. Bush nor Al Gore had a definitive electoral majority to turn the country red or blue. Only on Dec. 12, when the U.S. Supreme Court suspended the recount, did Florida officially become a “red state” – and Bush was elected the 43rd president of the United States. Night after night of television coverage had fixed our political colors in the national imagination: red for Republicans and blue for Democrats. In the United Kingdom, for example, the Conservative party color is blue, while the unofficial anthem of the Labour Party begins “The people’s flag is deepest red.” In various nations, red faces off against blue, replaying social and political divides that first assumed their ideological outlines and their primary colors in the French Revolution. Now, in America, red has become the color of conservatism.

In an interview marked by conciliatory remarks regarding Donald Trump and his administration, Jimmy Carter said he was willing to travel to North Korea in an attempt to soften tensions between Washington and Pyongyang. “The media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about,” he said. The president has also undercut efforts by his secretary of state to talk to Pyongyang, repeatedly suggesting that only military action will work, and used his maiden speech to the United Nations to threaten to “totally destroy” the country. The Democrat has been active on the world stage since leaving the White House, via the Carter Center non-profit. He also travelled to North Korea in 2010, to negotiate the release of an American held in the country, and again in 2011. Carter said he was “afraid” of nuclear conflict between the US and North Korea. Particularly to Kim.” The North Korean leader has “never, so far as I know, been to China”, Carter said. Kim Jong-il [the current leader’s father] did go to China and was very close to them.” Asked if Trump was responsible for souring America’s image in the world, he said “he might be escalating it but I think that precedes Trump. Carter suggested that might not be so unlikely an idea as many think, as “I’ve seen in the Arab world, including the Palestinian world, the high esteem that they pay to a member of one’s own family.” He also criticised Barack Obama’s record in Middle East policy and said he did not think Israel would ever permit a two-state solution. Asked about debates over whether statues to Confederate leaders should come down and if protesting black NFL players should stand for the national anthem, he agreed that Trump was “exacerbating” racial divisions.