Tag: Red states and blue states

Positioning themselves above it all, as ready and eager to work and compromise with the party of Donald Trump, can't help but make them sound weak and defensive. [They] like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. Obama was right about one thing: There aren't really blue and red states. Why is Joe Biden promising to say nice words about Republicans, and even campaigning for them? Why is Amy Klobuchar insisting that she and tens of millions of Trump voters are united in their “shared belief in our dreams for America”? Part of the explanation is surely rooted in the good, old-fashioned American suspicion of partisanship that goes all the way back to George Washington, and perhaps before him. Which is what ends up happening wherever democratic elections are a regular feature of political life. But of course such magnanimity only became possible because the North had all but prevailed in the fight by the time Lincoln delivered his speech. That's democratic politics 101. That makes bipartisan boilerplate sound silly — and places the politicians who utter such bromides right smack in the middle of the very nearly empty space between the two parties.

Positioning themselves above it all, as ready and eager to work and compromise with the party of Donald Trump, can't help but make them sound weak and defensive. [They] like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. Obama was right about one thing: There aren't really blue and red states. Why is Joe Biden promising to say nice words about Republicans, and even campaigning for them? Why is Amy Klobuchar insisting that she and tens of millions of Trump voters are united in their “shared belief in our dreams for America”? Part of the explanation is surely rooted in the good, old-fashioned American suspicion of partisanship that goes all the way back to George Washington, and perhaps before him. Which is what ends up happening wherever democratic elections are a regular feature of political life. But of course such magnanimity only became possible because the North had all but prevailed in the fight by the time Lincoln delivered his speech. That's democratic politics 101. That makes bipartisan boilerplate sound silly — and places the politicians who utter such bromides right smack in the middle of the very nearly empty space between the two parties.

The Idaho state representative is a down-the-line partisan who supports President Trump, opposes abortion and boasts an A-plus rating from the National Rifle Assn. But Perry breaks with many fellow conservatives when it comes to helping those who can’t afford insurance. “People should be working and you should be carrying your own weight,” Perry said. “We haven’t seen anywhere we don’t think healthcare works as a political issue and also as a substantive issue,” said Brad Woodhouse, campaign director of Protect Our Care, an advocacy group fighting to buttress the Affordable Care Act. “They just have to say, ‘The other party wants to take coverage away from millions of people,’” he said. He was communications director at the Democratic National Committee in 2010, when Republicans campaigning against Obamacare won 63 seats and took control of the House in a landslide. Many running this year, however, aren’t pushing for a so-called single-payer system. Rather, they promise to fight repeal of the Affordable Care Act — which the Trump administration continues to pursue — or call for expanding Medicaid, the federal program for the poor, disabled and nursing home residents that, polls show, enjoys strong support even among Republicans. Here in Idaho, the focus is the estimated 62,000 residents who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to pay for coverage through the state’s healthcare exchange. Idaho’s secretary of state is expected to complete a review of signatures by mid-July, with preliminary tallies suggesting the initiative is all but certain to qualify.

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.