European queston : Red States = Reps & Blue States = Dems. But red means Socialist / Communist ..How! - why?

Question

I just wondered, if this color scheme predated Karl Marx.
And where it came from, to me logically it should be the other way around.

For once I as a true blooded Immoral, dirty, pinko,lefty socialist sympathizer ask an utterly innocent question about what seems to me an odd choice for a color scheme. You do after all freely use the traditional terms left and right.
And I get accused of being a Republican !!?.
And don't worry about me mistaking the Democrats for Socialists. This is a laughable
American distinction. According to many well
established European democracies there is no real political left in the U.S.A..

Answer 1

No, the red state/blue state thing is a recent (very recent) media invention, and the color scheme is presumably arbitrary - red & blue are just high-contrast.

Yes, it would be more 'apropriate' to have the Dem's states 'red' because of thier long admiration for the ideals of Marx (and blue for the party of the 'blue-blooded' rich), but, it was probably for that very reason that the media chose to reverse it.

Answer 2

As the first poster says the color designations have no relationship to whether either party is right or left wing. It's just a reference to the colors used to show election results and that sort of thing on American TV. It's arbitrary.

Answer 3

I'm tired of right-wing ignoramuses implying that the Democrats are socialist. If they are, they're pretty pallid, and should be powder-blue rather than True Blue.

Red. R. Republican. R. Accept it.

Answer 4

The communists chose red as their color, and the Republicans chose red as their color, but that doesn't mean they're alike (except in that they share a color).

Answer 5

Blue dog Democrats????