"Blue state", schmoo state--they're still Reds

Varifrank says “My absolute favorite thing about today’s political world is how the right has stolen the color red from the left.” He shows a purveyor of “count me blue” bracelets (she also sells “count me red” bracelets.

I’m going to demur on a couple of counts.

First, I’m not sure that this country needs any more of this in your face, I-can’t-let- the-election-go attitude. People took down their yard signs on 3 November. Most took off their partisan lapel pins, except for some pro-Kerry dorks who still have them on their shoulder bag straps. Bumper stickers fade and are not lamented. I’m all for divisiveness when it serves a purpose or is the result of some productive effort. I don’t want to move-on if the issue hasn’t been settled.

But this issue has been settled. Time to continue the fight on the new ground. The only good thing about declaring yourself “blue” is that you can’t dismiss anyone who expresses a non-liberal opinion as “ideological”.

Second, as for Varifrank's glee, the right did not steal red from the left. It was the other way around. In 2000, the networks suddenly began coding their electoral maps red for Republicans and blue for Democrats. (Yet another manifestation of Logomachon's Law: If you want to know what the Democrats are up to, look at what they are accusing you of doing.)

Maybe the explanation got lost in the hanging chad kerfuffle, but I doubt it. For one thing, there are too many explanations. The thing is overdetermined.

Maybe the MSM, with reflexive ant-McCarthyism, couldn’t bear to call the Democrats “red”. Sounds good to me, especially after reading this gout of question-begging squid smog.

If you want to, you can believe the NYT editor who said it was because "Both Republican and red start with the letter R". If you want to.

I prefer to think liberalism, having become in 1992 the political creed that cannot speak its own name, had in 2000 reached the point that it can no longer show its true colors.

Third, I want blue back.