In Sweden, "vote blue to wipe out orange stains" COULD be interpreted as "vote liberal to wipe out the Liberal Youth wing". Which you know, seams a bit harsh.
Problem with the Swedish parties is that so many of then are blue: Moderates, Christians, and Liberals; and to make it more confusing; their alliance (called Alliance) is orange. Vote for the parties in the Alliance to wipe out the Alliance??
Romania's "Vote Blue to wipe out the Orange" would be weird because USR, (Save Romania Union, center-center-right party) is the blue one and orange (PLUS, a center center-left party) are in a coalition so this means they would wipe out their entire coalition
Hahaa that’s funny as hell. And odd. Hope it never happens. I mostly associate orange with PD-L and blue with the old PSD. I used to watch a lot of news in my childhood, and those guys were everywhere 😤
While red is associated with the CCP, most Chinese youths - including ethnically Chinese youth that aren't PRC citizens - will associate it with joy. Or more accurately, money, which is just denominated joy. Much of that is due to red packets (containing money), which kids receive on Chinese New Year. Red for communism, but also for dollar-y-doos. It's one of life's little ironies.
The flag of the Republic of China aka Taiwan is also Red as well, the color symbolizes the blood of the people that overthrew the Manchu Dynasty. And has nothing to do with communism, though the big irony is that Dr. Sun Yat-sen took some inspiration from the Soviet Union to establish a single-party state.
In Denmark the largest right wing party is called Venstre (“Left”). It’s only opposition party was called Højre (“Right”). And the splitter party from Venstre is centrist and called Radikale Venstre (Radical Left).
During its founding, Venstre was supported by many peasants who were against aristocracy, something that was supported by its conservative competitor "Hojre" (now Conservative People's Party). Later, Venstre's problems led to split and the creation of the Radikale Venstre (Radical Left), a political party now becaming social liberal and center-left. It is very weird for outsiders like me to call Danish liberals "left", with "left-wing" refered to SF and Enhedslisten.
there is a reason for purple being associated with nobility, when it was first made into a dye it was much more expensive than other dyes so most people didn't want to produce it unless it was for nobility (this is to my knowledge but this is what I've heard a lot and it makes sense after a bit of research)
Eastern Roman emperors often had the honorific "Porphyrogenetos", literally, "born in the purple", added to their name. This was a term applied to children born to parents ruling during their active reign in power. There was a room in the palace of Constantinople, lined in purple, where the empress gave birth. Porphyrogeneture was the policy of hereditary monarchies where the child born while their parent was on the throne is given priority as the heir to the throne, even over older siblings that may have been born while the monarch was just a prince.
Purple Dye was not just the most expensive dye, it was one of the most expensive things in the classical and medieval world, period. The Emperor Diocletian made an Edict on Maximum Prices in 301 CE that has survived, and it gives us a good look at what things cost in the Roman Empire. The single most expensive thing in the edict is one pound of purple-dyed silk.
@@WanukeX You don't need to go back 2000+ years to know about how difficult it is to have blue dyes. Currently, our blue dyes, found in food or otherwise, are still synthetic, because there's so few plants that produce the blue anthocyanins necessary to have natural blue dyes. Even in the foods that naturally have blue anthocyanins in them, there are still more red anthocyanins in it, due to red being the more stable version, and that's why they mostly look purple instead.
At this point, I can guarantee it's not just out of convenience. I had a whole section of my graphic design degree dedicated to color theory as associations because there is such a strong subconscious effect that the colors any political or corporate organization uses on the reception it will have on the observer. It's one of the things that gets really heavily dissected when creating marketing materials.
Well, what else were we supposed to do pre-phones/computers/tv/radio? I’d assume the parents of those born in the early-mid 1900’s were likely more imaginative/poetic, as it’s not like they were able to hear how people Actually speak via tv/radio/RU-vid, so I’m sure some folks spoke a bit over-poetically, due to the smaller people-per-square ft, and more distance between homes/farms/etc. Symbolism is the result of all that extra time and lack of societal mass. Sometimes places would be bought and sold by other nations and the people actually living there had no idea
In Germany we also have the problem that two parties want to occupy the color red. The social democratic SPD has been red since the beginning and were originally the only "red" after WW2. But after the reunification the socialist East German party reformed itself and also wanted to be represented by the color red. Now both parties embrace the color red and when talking about a SPD-Left coalition it is called a "red-red coalition". On election graphics the Left party is represented by the color purple though.
What's also interesting is when you look at publications by the Left they swap it around and show their own party as red and the SPD as a purple/pink-ish colour.
Sometimes different shades of red are used, and the Left party then (usually) gets a darker shade of red. "Rot-Rot-Grün" (red-red-green) is more likely than just red-red BTW because the two "red" parties by themselves wouldn't have a majority these days. The city state of Berlin has a red-red-green coalition government at the moment.
Similarly in Greece, the newish left party rebranded in an effort to have some symbolism and they change their colour from pink to red, problem is that the colour red belongs to the Communist party
In Brazil green is seen as the go-to "patriotic" colour due to it's prominence on the flag, making it popular with conservative parties. During the military dictatorship certain high ranking officers were accused of being "watermelons", green on the outside and red on the inside, though I'm not really sure if the green refers to the flag or the military itself.
@@JJMcCullough To be fair, if you examine the non-environmental policies of the UK green party nowadays, particularly on social issues they come out further to the left than Labour.
@@JJMcCullough this reminds me of beefsteak nazis, nazis who were socialists (red on the inside) but worked with the nazis and hid their socialist views, brown being the color of the nazis. or the more libertarian socialists calling authoritarian socialists “red fash” or “red fascists”, though that’s less similar.
In the US there was also a political faction known as “Yellow Dog Democrats” who were southerners that voted straight ticket because they would “vote for a yellow dog before a Republican”
Yes, many people nowadays forget that the Democratic Party in some states was *literally* a white supremacist party. I forget which state it was now, but one state's Democratic Party *literally* had the phrase "White Supremacy for the Right" in its logo. That pretty much ended after Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but vestiges of that mentality still existed in the Democratic Party through the 1970s. By the Reagan era, most of those people switched to the Republican Party.
In Germany it’s a bit weird. First you need to know that there are two parties called CDU(Christian Democratic Union) and CSU(Christian Social Union), which have almost the same centre-right political views, except the CSU only exists in Bavaria and the CDU only exists outside Bavaria. When only one of these parties is shown or they are grouped together in a diagram, people normally use the color black. When they are shown separately however the CDU is normally black and the CSU is normally dark blue, so in Bavaria “vote blue” could mean that you should vote for the CSU. In the rest of Germany however the AfD(Alternative for Germany), the far-right party, is usually associated with the color blue. Therefore “vote blue” could also mean that you should vote for them. “Remove orange” also isn’t really easy, as there isn’t a big party with the color orange. The biggest party with the color orange is the FW(Free Voters), a centre to centre-right party, which do not have have any seats in the Bundestag, the German equivalent to the House of Representatives in the US or the House of Commons in Canada. They technically have seats in the Bundesrat, the German equivalent of the Senate in the US or Canada, but they can’t really vote on their own. In the Bundesrat every state gets a number of votes based on population and the state governments appoint the members. They can appoint as many people as they have votes, but they can also appoint fewer people with some of them having more than one vote, so in total they have the correct number of votes. Who these people are and which party they are a member of doesn’t really matter, since every state has to vote the same way with all of its votes, so being a member of the Bundesrat is more a symbolic thing. Because they are appointed you also can’t directly vote them out, only indirectly by not voting for them in the statewide elections. “remove orange” would therefore only make sense in the state where the FW have a significant portion of the seats in the state parliament. This is currently only Bavaria. In Brandenburg the BVB/FW(Brandenburg United Civic Movements/Free Voters), which cooperates with the FW, has seats in parliament. It is a separate party however and it has the color blue instead of orange. In Rheinland-Palatinate there was an election just yesterday and the FW will most likely get 6 out of 101 seats, so “remove orange” would now also make sense in Rhineland-Palatinate. To summarize, in Bavaria “vote blue, remove orange” either means “vote AfD, remove FW” or “vote CSU, remove FW”. In Rhineland-Palatinate it can only mean “vote AfD, remove FW”.
What's also interesting for Germany: Even though the conservative party, the CDU, has black as its colour, it mostly uses orange for campaigning because black just doesn't look that good on posters.
Here in British Columbia, the Liberal Party has slowly started to use more and more blue in their posters. Some try to find ideology in this, but I think it’s just to maximize visual contrast with the NDP, as the Conservatives are not competitive in BC. On the election night maps, everyone still uses red though. I was going to mention this in the video but ran out of time.
It's not orange. It's red. Or a reddish orange. Well, it's #eb2709 and the color of the lettering. It all looks more orange-ish because they changed their ci. Now, the colors in the background are the colors of the German flag. And yes, there is much red and yellow (gold) going on. They don't use black this often, because it's the old color of Catholic conservatism. It's old fashioned and there is this litle children and priests thing going on. Black never was the color of the CDU and was never used (well, their youth organisation did it once with "black is beautiful"). It's just the political color of the conservative (block).
I make a point of spellin it the opposite of the norm for where Im at so that the maximum numbr of folks can be annoyd by my spelling. Also why I interchange between judgement and judgment (Actually a half lie, truly just no idea which of those two is right for where xD)
One correction: The red flag actually was used in the first French Revolution. It was first raised by the National Guard as a symbol of martial law, which the Jacobins responded to by raising their own red flags to symbolize those killed by the National Guard and "the martial law of the people against the revolt of the court". During the Reign of Terror, the red flag was even made a national emblem, although the tricolor remained the more popular symbol.
I was about to post a comment about it. I read this story in a book called "Le petit livre des couleurs" ("small book of colours") by Michel Pastoureau and Dominique Simmonet. It's a book about the meaning of coulours historically. In the chapter on the red colour this was told.
I genuinely enjoy the fact that even if your videos are political here and there, they still carry the feeling that I'm just being told about things from different places, sometimes even in my own country, instead of coming off like you're telling me what I should or shouldn't think. It makes them seriously enjoyable, and probably an easy watch to people all around the political spectrum. I'm glad that I found your channel, and I feel like myself, and the many, many others that watch are better off having found your videos to begin with. Keep up the good work and consistent quality, man. It's much appreciated :)
Purple is often associated with royalty because purple dye was rare back then and as a result it was more common to see kings and queens to wear purple clothing than ordinary citizens.
@@shawnkeo2817 I guess that makes sense since people have found much easier ways to create purple, which basically means it is no longer rare and as such the prices for purple colored products (i.e. clothing) would be cheaper.
And only certain shades of purple, particularly the dark kinds. A lighter purple, for instance, I believe could be made from the relatively abundant lavender plant.
Strong purple that would not fade pretty much came from cultivated snails in the eastern Med. Tyre in Lebanon surrendered to Alexander on good terms after Alexander lost his siege machines attacking it. Purple trim or stripes became a symbol of autonomy and close to 200 years later the Roman republic would adopt purple stripes for senators and purple trim for executive officers.
The purple thing comes from the Byzantines. Being "born to the purple" meant being a part of the imperial family and therefore having a claim to the throne. The reason mostly comes down to how difficult it was to make purple dye, the sea snails that were used only being available on a few islands off of Greece.
@@frislander4299 It predates the ancient Romans, it was the Phoenicians who harvested murex snails to have a monopoly on the purple dye. The name Phoenician pretty much means purple.
Political colors in Europe: Dark red: communists Red: socialdemocrats/labourists Green: greens Yellow: liberal democrats Light blue: liberal conservatives/ Christian democrats Dark blue: national conservatives / fascists
@@orange9776 Not in germany today, CDU, our modarate conservatives, are coloured black due to their association to priests back in the day when they were actually christian
This fits pretty much for germany, exept our moderate conservatives/ "Christian" democrats are black and only their bavarian sister party is light blue
In Switzerland: Red: Communist & Socialist & Social Democrat & Right-wing christian conservative Green: Green & Green Liberal & National conservative Yellow: Center-left Christian Democracy (Protestant) Orange: Center-right Christian Democracy (Catholic) Blue: Liberal Conservative Red&Blue: Right wing regionalist Yeah, it‘s a bit a mess here with the colors. (I listed all the parties with at least one seat in the national parliament)
2:01 One comparable color tradition we have in the Western world (or at least in the Anglosphere) that you didn't mention is pink being the color of femininity. While this is a very new phenomenon, only becoming widespread in the 1950s (mainly because it was a trendy clothing color in general in the 50s, and women were stereotypically thought of as caring more about what they wear), it has become very pervasive. Parties announcing or commemorating the birth of a baby girl will often have pink decorations. In many cartoons and children's shows, the most important female character (be she the protagonist, the love interest, or one of the protagonists' friends) will usually wear pink. The symbol used to represent females (♀) is often colored pink. The breast cancer awareness movement is symbolized by a pink ribbon, since it mostly only affects women. Pink is the most common color used in women's cosmetics: go to your local makeup store and you'll find more shades of pink lipstick than any other color. It was also the first nail polish color to become mainstream (though that may _also_ be because the color of human fingernails is already a light pinkish color, and thus light pink polish looked the most "natural"). Products marketed towards women and girls, whether they be dolls, shoes, or tampons, will often have pink packaging- and likewise, the tendency of womens' products to be more expensive than those designed for men is called "the pink tax". Liking pink as a man is associated with either being effeminate or not caring what others think of you. Pink is the traditional color of Mother's Day, with most greeting cards for said holiday being pink in color. A lot of the flowers most commonly grown by florists are pink in color, as flowers are traditionally considered a gift to give to a woman. The most commonly used lesbian flag includes pink stripes on the bottom. And while many tomboys have decried it for symbolizing "girliness" and being a cliché favorite color among women, pink is still heavily used in the feminist movement- think pink pussyhats, the pink "female" symbol with a fist inside of it, etc.
Pink was always a color for men. Pink was the most masculine color you could wear back in the day. Elvis loved pink. And wore pink very often in the 50s early on in his career, and drove a pink Cadillac he named Elvis Rose. Unfortunately, TVs in the 50s were in black & white, so nobody actually realized Elvis wore pink almost all the time. And by the time people got color TVs, Elvis had switched to his much more iconic, and well-known white sequin jumpsuit. But men are taking pink back. Machine Gun Kelly has made pink his signature color. Donald Trump pre-2015, before he ran for president, always wore a pink necktie, before he switched to red. And the straight people are starting to take back the rainbow that was *stolen* by the alphabet people. The rainbow was created for straight people.
@@SuperKing604 Might be because the democracy in Portugal arose in opposition to a right-wing dictatorship, as J.J. pointed out. So naturally all parties would be more on the left side of the spectrum at first.
I noticed how the red Tory thing is a leftwing conservative in Canada, interesting how much that contrasts with how it is here in the UK, a red Tory is a jab at labour politicians who are seen as too right wing
Yeah you usually add Tory to the colour of the party they came from. Though I feel Its mainly used for the lib dems more recently (Yellow Tory) with Blairites being used more often.
A Red Tory is also a jab at more left wing conservatives in the Party, here in the UK. I'd call Boris a Red Tory given his love of regulation and green politics. He's the opposite of Thatcher in many ways.
@@NZAnimeManga I'd probably have to disagree with you there, when I think of more left-leaning Tories I think Sam Gyimah and Ken Clarke, not Johnson. Especially when you take into account immigration and who he has chosen in his cabinet such as Priti Patel.
For the red flag idea at roughly 4:20, the red cow symbolizes agricultural revolution, which is why the red cow on The Laughing Cow was started during the German occupation of France from 1940-1945 as a subtle political statement that wouldn’t incur German wrath. If I’m not mistaken, the cow is the agricultural part, and the red is the revolution part, so I’m pretty sure that red symbolized revolution, which would have a distinct meaning, instead of the supposedly randomization of the colors for the French Revolution. Edit: I believe the red cow meaning agricultural revolution goes all the way back to medieval times.
Tigerduck is a character in the children books of Janosh. In those books it is a pull along toy - a duck with tigerstripes. Real life toys have been made after this character.
The dog saying comes from a Texas Democrat who claimed people would vote for a democrat who was running for an office over a Republican "even if it was a yellow dog (cowardly dog) ". Those democrats were referred to as yellow dog democrats. Red dog/blue dog came later.
In Italy we had a right party that used green as a color but they switched to blue a couple of years ago. They used to be a secessionist party of the north of the country. When the old guard left the new leaders decided to drop the whole secession thing and go on to be just a right wing party. That's when the color switch happened.
@@highetruscan8894 I was going to say that they changed their name as part of the rebranding, but I wasn’t 100% certain, and I didn’t want to risk saying anything wrong about it.
@@BoraCM Yes they changed because they realized that with the heritage of the secessionist party they could never lead a government and go on with their policies. By ditching the "nord" part and the leadership focusing on national problems rather than regional ones they were able to become one of if not the biggest party in the country. I think they are around 30-40% somewhere like that in popularity, which for a parliamentary republic such as Italy is a lot. At the moment they are not that big in parliament but in the next election, assuming they don't screw up big time in the meanwhile, they could get the lion's share of the seats.
While this is true for the logo, I think that in the public's mind they are still very much associated with green. When they formed a government with the (at the time) anti-EU-anti-Establishment party, that is yellow, journalist described it as a "Green and Yellow" coalition. This also has to do with the fact that all three right wing italian parties have blue logos, and now even the centrist-pro-EU one is blue. And if you non-italians find this complicated, this reflects the chaos that our political system faces right now. Come rescue us.
I’ve never seen a person who can discuss politics from a more neutral and unbiased perspective than JJ. This is why I love this channel. Not because I’m particularly political, but because I value objective information so highly.
It's less that he's neutral and unbiased, as it's literally impossible to be unbiased, but that he's fair to both sides of debate and willing to present them in the best light - which is ultimately the goal of a journalist, which he is
@@haydenmaines5905 the ultimate goal of a journalist is supposed to be presenting information in the manner most useful to their audience, which primarily requires it be presented Honestly. If a particular group or action is legitimately reprehensible, it should be reported as such, just as much as good things should be reported as such. Otherwise you're a propagandist, not a journalist.
@@laurencefraser the problem is when "legitimately reprehensible" means whatever ideology the journalist doesn't like. It's not a journalists job to make these kinds of judgements, treating all sides of the discussion fairly and exposing every part of their belief is the only way to make real journalism. If you show only one position and lable every opposing ideology as legitimately reprehensible you're not a journalist, your a propagandist.
I’ve heard that the reason why the republicans are red is because one of the news stations (I forget who exactly) went with “Red for Reagan” because it would be easier remember due to the alliteration of it. I would also assume this is because “republican” has R has its first letter as well. So it just made sense to have a Republican called Reagan be Red.
In Belgium there is also a rich coalition history, and with naming those coalisitions, from 2014-2019 we had the swedish coalitions, a combination of liberals (blue) and Flemish nationalists (yellow), whereas now we have the 'vivaldi' coalition, referring to the four seasons: green party, christian-democrats (orange), liberals (blue) and social-democrats (red), there were even talks about an Arizona-coalition after the last election of socialists, liberals, flemish nationalists and christian democrats (red, blue, yellow, orange) I don't know how they came up with that
In the 2019 Hong Kong protests there was a very dominant colour division between sides - pro democracy protestors wore black to show their support for the movement and opposition to the government, and following an incident where triad members in white shirts assaulted some protestors, white became the colour the pro-government/Beijing wore. The significance of wearing black to symbolise one's opposition towards the HK government was so strong that at some point in 2019 China temporarily banned the delivery of black shirts to the region from the mainland; Wearing all black in public made you a target for the authorities, something which people are still wary of in the present day. Black was chosen seemingly arbitrarily although it may have some roots in the 2014 Umbrella Revolution (also pro-democracy) where a yellow umbrella on a black background became a symbol for the protest. Yellow also became synonymous with democracy in Hong Kong because of this e.g. pro-democracy districts would be coloured yellow on some maps and voting for a democracy leaning candidate was voting 'yellow'. Another colour that gained political meaning was the colour blue, which was used to refer to or represent the police force after the colour of their uniforms; It also became a pro-government colour because of the force's role in protecting the government. Hope that was interesting for anyone who reads this! A lot of this is based off of experience so there may be a few inaccuracies but that is the gist of the colour of politics in Hong Kong
I would say as far as political identities go that the colours are yellow and blue. Wearing black was just a protest tactic to be easily identifiable as friendly in the event you were targeted by authorities in the streets. One of the symbols of the 2014 Umbrella movement was indeed a yellow umbrella on a black background, but predating this by several weeks was the widespread use of yellow ribbons to symbolise one's support for democracy, which did allude to some degree with the use of the colour yellow in suffrage movements around the world. Hence why people would describe themselves as "Yellow Ribbon (黃絲)" and pro-democracy or "Blue Ribbon (藍絲)" and pro-police.
@@charlesmadre5568 Aaah right! I never knew which had come first the yellow ribbons or the yellow umbrellas - at the time it had seemed they came about around the same time; Thanks for sharing And good point the use of black and white was more so a practical element of the protests - you wouldn't see people in yellow vs blue shirts (the tragic irony of wearing black for protestors to identify each other being used by the authorities to target protestors)
@@rfl8359 It was almost at the same time. The use of umbrellas as a symbol was only popularized by American media once the protests had started and then picked up by protesters themselves as a symbol. Yellow ribbons have a longer history (probably dating back to the 1980s) though remained quite obscure until a few days before the 2014 protests started.
@@charlesmadre5568 Oh that's interesting I had always heard the umbrellas had become a symbol because of how much they were used in the Occupy movement by protestors to shield themselves from the things being used against them (e.g. pepper spray, tear gas - but also to shield them from the sun actually during their sit ins); I vaguely remember something about umbrellas being commonly carried by Hongkongers in daily life was also something thrown in there to make the meaning of the umbrella more representative of the Hong Kong people, but that might be a more obscure interpretation/reference. In any case whether or not the umbrella as a symbol was popularized by the American media, I'd say it was pretty wholeheartedly adopted by the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong as a symbol of resistance
Probably one reason why the coalition tends to get liberal blue. And the LNP chose to use a blue and yellow combination in Queensland, though that probably also just looks nicer than blue and green would. I do appreciate how the CLP in the Northern Territory skipped the issue entirely and went with orange. Adds a bit of variety.
In Belgium we do the same thing like Germany in finding weird names for the coalitions based on their colours. Right now, we have the Vivaldi coalition, which is taking it even some steps further, being named after Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons', the seasons representing blue liberals, red socialists, green ecologists and orange christian democrats
In the west, we do have a lot of color associations outside of the political sphere. Think about what colors you see a lot in corproate logos, and they're all intentionally selected because of what we think of when we see them. Blue is a color we tend to think of as safe and trustworthy, which is why you see it in so many bank logos while red is seen as being fast (and sometimes aggressive) which is where you'd see it in fast food logos. Oranges are seen by many older Americans as representing something cheap, so you'll see that as well for value brands and again in fast food. And there are associations with just about every other color with green being lucky, purple being exotic, yellow being both cowardly and energetic. Why we don't revere these colors in the west the same way as in the east, though, is a question I couldn't answer.
@@ginaslevinsky8906 that fascinates me, i had heard of no name food before but didn’t realise it was a budget option because to me it looked intentionally minimalist and cool 😅 also interesting because imo yellow is a somewhat “cheap” colour in the UK too - one of the major supermarket chains started selling a whole line of very cheap affordable foods, supposedly to aid people in the cost of living crisis, and they all have bright yellow packaging with black block letters. the idea that the bright yellow packaging was very distinct, and people complaining that walking round the supermarket with those foods in your basket made it obvious that you were struggling financially, was a whole thing in the news at one point - but i think that was a case of making sensational stories about how “the whole nation has this weird opinion!!” from like two people making whiny comments on social media 💀
Might want to look at the Philippines, as Yellow is associated with Liberals and Anti-Duterte. Even being called Dilawan (Yellow in Filipino), as an insult by Duterte supporters.
And the most ironic thing about Filipino politics is that Duterte joined Team PNoy (Liberal Party) in 2013 midterms and his party (PDP-LABAN) joined a coalition to oust Marcos in the People Power Revolution. But the most, most ironic thing is that *he has photos speaking with the CPP (Communist Party of The Philippines) and a video of him skyping with Joma Sison, CPP leader in exile, also his teacher*
He even says himself that he is a socialist, which is understandable to have red as his color, but the color red is stained with the Communists and Marcos. Red is the color of many, many ideologies in the Philippines.
Purple was associated with the emperor and his family in Ancient Rome. it was the most difficult and expensive colour to produce, so would make sense why the rOyAls of Britain would keep the tradition of purple as a good chunk of the island used to belong to Rome and not to mention the fact that the western world is obsessed with Rome
@@JJMcCullough The peoblem is that Tyrian purple is not that consistent of a colour shade. Depending on the species and the processing it can go a lot deeper into the red or blueish part of the spectrum (on the Wiki page there is a nice comparison of some "purple" shades). For someone who isn't aware of the existenxe of purple, this may very well just be another shade of blue or red, which could lead to this situation of several royal colours.
There’s a song that the Labour Party in the UK like called “the red flag”. When Tony Blair was prime minister and “new labour” (a more moderate, centrist wing of the party) was a thing, there was a spoof version that went “The people's flag is palest pink, Blair washed it in the kitchen sink”
In India, Conservative & Nationalist parties usually use orange as their colour, while the more Liberal Parties use green (which the conservatives use, to accuse them of favouring the Muslims). The Blue Colour is mostly associated with the Social Democratic parties. While, Red is the colour of the Communist Parties, and is hated by all of the above.
I always get confused by danish politics because we have a party called "Left" that is very much a center-right party. So when people say I vote left I never know if they mean left-wing or just the party "Left".
A unifying slogan for Democrats was "vote blue no matter who": i.e. if you supported say Bernie in the primaries, vote Biden cause no matter the differences between Democrats they're all better than Trump. The only time I've heard colours used outside Northern Ireland is "the red wall", the idea of working class Labour areas in the North of England who switched to the Conservative Party (similar to the blue wall in American politics), and less commonly "red prince" (a Labour figure who is only in office allegedly because they are someone important's child such as Will Straw son of Jack Straw). A "red Tory" is not a left-wing tory but a Labour figure seen as too right-wing, while Blue Labour is a faction of socially conservative Labour supporters. The right-wing of the Liberal Democrats is called the "Orange Bookers". The Labour party's use of red was apparently the principle reason Vote Leave used that colour according to a documentary I watched where they interviewed the group's leader. Apparently this would help them win working class voters. Finally, patriotism has been invoked a few times with colours. When asked whether she favoured a "hard" or "soft" Brexit, Theresa May said she wanted a "red white and blue Brexit". I guess I should talk about Northern Ireland: a People Before Profit (radical left-wing) MLA said he went campaigning saying "we're neither orange nor green - we're for you" or a variation thereof. The three green parties across the country are the only to actually have a colour in the name.
If I have this correct: America’s first political parties had colors as well. During the revolution, the symbol of the Franco-American alliance was a black and white roundel that soldiers would pin on their tricorne hats and this became a symbol of the Federalist Party lead by Alexander Hamilton, John Adams etc. meanwhile Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican party, as it’s known today used a Red-White and Blue roundel. As to why, I’m not so certain but those colors are patriotic and Jefferson and friends were fairly supportive of the French Revolution which ended up using Red White and Blue for its flag
15:40 I'd like to add the Kiwi coalition: Greens + CDU. It's used when the Greens are the bigger part of the mix, like it happened in Baden-Württemberg.
In Belgium we have the same tradition as in Germany. The current government coalition is called “Vivaldi”, referring to Antonio Vivaldi his Four Seasons. Blue for the liberals (winter), green for the greens (spring), red for the Social Democrats (summer) and orange for the Christian Democrats (fall). The previous government was called a Swedish government, blue for liberals, yellow for the Flemish nationalists and the cross in te flag referred to the Christian Democrats. Other combinations are olive tree: red, green and orange or Roman-Red: orange and red or Burgundy: red, blue and yellow.
Using colours for coalitions, like you said in Germany, is also the case for other countries. For example in the Netherlands, in the 1990s and from 2012 to 2017, we had the "purple" coalition, of the social democratic and liberal parties working together. And in Belgium, right now they have the "Vivaldi coalition", referring to his classical piece 'The Four Seasons': liberals (blue / winter), socialists (red / summer), ecologists (green / spring), and Christian parties (orange / autumn).
Hi JJ, your friend Jorge from spain here. It made me very happy to see my country represented so many times in this video! As an additional comment, while the traditional party colours in Spain were red for labour and blue for conservative, thr new parties have chosen purple (left wing), orange (centre-right, liberal) and most surprisingly, green for the far right populist party Vox
In the Houses of the UK Parliament- you’ll find the rooms with blue carpets show the rooms for the Queen, the red carpets show the Lords and the green carpets show the Commons!
In Finland we have a whole colour-coded naming scheme for governmental coalitions similiar to the one in Germany. For example currently we have a red-soil-goverment.
Party colours in Australia are quite recent too. The centre-right Liberal Party introduced their blue logo in 1980 (the same one they use today) and have used blue in their campaign material quite consistently since then. The Australian Labor Party only settled on red very recently though, in the 2010s. From the 1980s until then, they used a series of red, white and blue logos based on the national flag. They used all sorts of colours in their campaign materials: I have seen orange, yellow, blue and green ALP posters and flyers in the past. It’s only in the 2010s that they adopted an all-red logo consistently accompanied by red campaign material. Both the conservative agrarian National Party and the eco-socialist Australian Greens use the colour green. There is surprisingly little confusion; the National Party consistently uses a darker green (like Brunswick green or British racing green) while the Greens always use a brighter hue (like Kelly green). The biggest confusion is with the national-populist One Nation party. Their first logo was blue and yellow, their current logo is blue and orange, but the media can’t decide which colour to use in their election coverage. I have seen brown, black, orange, yellow, grey and cyan used by media outlets for One Nation. There is a similar lack of consistency in the smaller minor parties you find in the Senate and various state parliaments. Katter’s Australian Party uses a deep red, a darker crimson than the Labor Party; media outlets usually use dark red or brown. The Shooters Party (a significant force in NSW state politics) has a red, black and blue logo but also often gets brown in the media. The libertarian Liberal Democrats have a blue and yellow logo and sometimes get yellow in the media, or just plain grey. The Country Liberal Party, the main centre-right party in the Northern Territory, uses an ochre and black logo, the official colours of the NT (also used on the territory flag), and consistently gets ochre in media coverage. The Liberal National Party of Queensland is the main centre-right party in that state and uses a blue and yellow logo; media outlets consistently assign blue to the LNP.
Somewhat off-topic, but you've sparked a minor question for me here, JJ: America has been a very open society, with a vibrant press (for good or ill). America has also been politicially contentious. And, America has recently been a very powerful, and therefore consequential, country. All of this is to say that America has had a rather outsized voice (again, for good or ill). But the thing that strikes me, in this video about political colors particularly, is how out of step America often is with the rest of the world (red vs. blue, and whatnot). Which makes me wonder about future history books. After America's time has passed, with the preponderance of American literature, media, and culture... will future historians color the world in American colors? Will they apply American symbolism to the rest of America's sphere of influence? And to what extent do current and/or past historians erroneously color previous eras in the symbolism of the hegemon of the time? And how out of step could that hegemon have actually been? What will future historians make of imperial vs. metric? -edited for typos.
That's a really fascinating question. I imagine it will be very confusing, like how today it's hard to understand why there were multiple King Herods and so on. I wonder what would be other good examples of confusing historical things.
@@JJMcCullough - I guess I'm moving into symbolic subcultures. If we take a literal view of language as a symbol of thought, China provides an interesting historical example. I've heard there's traditionally been a multitude of Chinese spoken languages, all using the same written language. I only know of Cantonese as a contrast to Mandarin, but I believe there were/are others. I wonder how the popular visual symbology of a Cantonese speaking region may differ from a Mandarin speaking one. I imagine the aftermath of the cultural revolution may make research difficult though. Or a more recent example might be found in Latin America. They all speak Spanish (more or less), but I'm sure local symbolic traditions vary. That could be interesting. Or to take a complete unknown (to me, anyway), how Roman would Illyria or Iberia have been after the conquest of those regions? How would they have viewed Rome proper? Would they be seen as effite fops? Or murderous thugs? Do any popular traditions (unique folklore, symbolism, or holidays) survive to this day from pre-roman times? I dunno, I'm just thinking out loud, and probably rambling at this point. Cool video though. 👍
@@yomomz3921 There are 7 main branches of Chinese: Mandarin, Wu (incl. Shanghainese), Yue (incl. Cantonese and Taishanese), Min (incl. Hokkien, Teochew, Foochownese and Hainanese), Hakka, Xiang and Gan, none of which are mutually intelligible with each other. All these spoken varieties officially share a single common written language based on Mandarin, though the Communist government instituted a simplified script that was not followed by Taiwan, HK or Macau, who maintain the traditional script. That said, there is a somewhat rich shelf of written Cantonese literature (in Chinese characters) that has existed since the 17th Century, and a Latin script to transcribe Hokkien is still actively popular among some Christians in Taiwan. Additionally, written Hokkien in Chinese characters is increasingly popular in Taiwan. As a Cantonese speaker, popular visual symbolism is rather similar in Hong Kong and China for things that predate the communist revolution on the Mainland. There may be some minor differences probably due to geography, but on the whole there shouldn't be much difference. Since the PRC was founded the political culture on both sides of the border have become radically different, and hence anything related to politics will have different meanings on either side.
@@charlesmadre5568 - Fascinating. That's got me feeling like I'm taking a stroll on the dark side of the moon. There's a lot of mystery in pre-communist China. Thanks.
@@yomomz3921 Written Cantonese has also a very long history of use for informal writing in Hong Kong and southern China, but traditionally this is not seen as challenging the official status of standard written Chinese which is based on Mandarin. That said in recent years some younger Hongkongers have sought to give written Cantonese a more official status, such as trying to make schools accept students' work written in vernacular Cantonese rather than standard Chinese for example. China does see this as challenging the dominance of standard Chinese and has tried to crack down, which only reinforces liberal-minded Hongkongers to identify even more with Cantonese as a separate language that deserves to be treated equally in writing.
Bolsonaro's inauguration speech ended with him waving the Brazilian flag and boasting: "I'm willing to give my life to assure you that this flag will never be red". You won't get a political speech more colorful than that.
We in Malaysia are politically obsessed with the colour blue. Blue is usually associated with the social-conservative but economic-liberal National Front (BN, aka the Malaysian GOP), however except a few, most political party actually has the colour blue on their logo or flag. Through the years since 1957, most BN's spinoffs/splinters are also using the colour blue (they use different shades of blue to show how liberal or conservative they are but still...). Like, there's a spectrum of colours, why blue? 🤣🤣🤣 Well, we also have an obsession with the colour red as in Malaysian politics, red denotes both nationalism (as portrayed by BN's component parties and several new right-wing nationalist parties) and socialism (opposition parties unite under the red 'Alliance of Hope' banner). 😁😁
In Turkey our centre-left Kemalist party is red while our centre right-ruling party AKP is yellow.Our far-right Turkish nationalist party is blue and interestingly enough, our social-democratic Kurdish interest party is purple.
Deep, rich colours were very expensive historically (depending on what they were made from, and the amount of effort it took to dye things that colour), hence certain shades of red and blue being associated with rulers. Purple was made from a rare Mediterranean sea snail, which is why the Romans mandated that only those at the top of society (magistrates, generals and emperors) could wear it Although, when artificial dyes were invented, the colour mauve was adopted by the British republican movement (with green harkening back to the Levelers of the English Civil War). Purple, white and green were also used by the suffragettes
Austria actually also went with the "German" colour scheme for most of it's history (black - conservative, red - social dems, blue - right wing populists/nationalists, green - Greens/eco/vaguely left-liberal). The addition of pink as the colour for liberals (centrists) and the switch from black to turquios for the conservatives are very recent developments and the latter kinda bugs me, lol.
The reason purple was considered the color of royalty is actually something you mentioned briefly at the end of the video, a dye called Tyrian Purple, which is still $2500 an ounce today was made via boiling snails which only live in the region of what is today Lebanon. Through a lengthy and *horrifically smelly* process the snails were boiled and when you read or hear of an East Roman Emperor "taking the Purple" it means it literally, the garb was dyed with Tyrian Purple. It was so hard to manufacture that when a British chemist accidentally made synthetic purple in the 19th century, he was knighted.
Be it democrats, republicans, liberals, conservatives, independents, moderates, federalists, marxists, oligarchs, dictators, monarchs, communists, capitalists, fascists, nationalists, socialists, anarchists, theocrats, aristocrats, and so on all have there pros and cons
Fun fact: in China, trading apps also have green and red which mark up and down. But it's actually the opposite: red means good, green means bad! Just an interesting fact I discovered recently.
I don't think the association of white with purity is so much intended as a racial thing as it is to invoke images of untouched snowbanks and clean white sheets. Even the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible uses white to symbolize purity in that way. And since purple is associated with royalty and wealth, its only appropriate that its component colors, red and blue, would be as well. However, there is a historical connection, as natural purple dye was hard to come by in the ancient world and thus was expensive. Most of it came from a coastal city called Tyre, and because of its high cost, only the wealthy (including royals and nobility) could afford clothing made with it. As far as I know, neither major party here in America has officially adopted the colors widely associated with them (red for Republicans and blue for Democrats), but the party organizations commonly use them in their literature and public statements. Also, Grant made a minor error. CBS used blue for Reagan and red for Carter in 1980, but began reversing it in 1984, with red for Republicans and blue for Democrats.
In France a few years ago our far right figure Marine Le Pen used a weird slogan for her movement "Rassemblement Bleu Marine" Rassemblement is just a synonym for Union but "Bleu Marine" = "Navy Blue" so it was all just a pun with her name. But more broadly colors are quite a big thing in our politics, Most political newspapers for instance have a colour related to their political identity, and in our last elections in 2017, Macron's party which intended to "go beyond traditional left and right divisions" used black and white for its visual identity
02:31 The tradition of purple being a royal colour dates back to the Byzantine Empire where purple clothing was made from a dye that took a lot of labour to extract from sea snails. Due to it's expense it was mostly associated with the upper class, and being born a son under a currently reigning Emperor was known as being "Born in the Purple". Royal Blue comes to us from France where again the cost of the dyes to make blue colour was usually a flex on others to show you had wealth to afford it. For many years the standard of the Kings of France was a blue background emblazoned with a single or multiple Fleur-de-lis.
Eastern Roman emperors often had the honorific "Porphyrogenetos", literally, "born in the purple", added to their name. This was a term applied to children born to parents ruling during their active reign in power. There was a room in the palace of Constantinople, lined in purple, where the empress gave birth. Because of this, what we now call "porphyrogeneture" is the term applied to the policy of hereditary monarchies where the child born while their parent was on the throne is given priority to be the heir to the throne, even over older siblings that may have been born while the current ruler was just a prince.
1:33 That’s a weird thing to hear, as a Japanese I can’t think of any situation where Rayman wearing purple can be considered a problem... Maybe a bit unusual color for a protagonist but that doesn’t make it bad (just makes him kind of unique).
Just for the record here: the Austrian conservative party (ÖVP) also used to use the color "black" as its main color (which is a color associated with the peasantry which was the nucleus of Austrian conservatives, I think). In recent years the party color was changed to turquoise as part of a rebranding but as far as I know black is still a party color, being used by some more traditional conservatives in the countryside.
Hungary The "Vote Blue" thing would mean "Vote for the "good" Democrats, kick out the Fascists." Given the fact that the blue color could represent the democratic party known as the "Demokratikus koalíció" (Democratic Coalition) lead by former priminster, Ferenc Gyurcsány's wife, Klára Dobláv And the orange could mean the current ruling party, known as "Fidesz", lead by current priminister Viktor Orbán
Haha the advert I got at the start of this video was from Nigel Farage, ex-leader of the purple UKIP party. I haven't even watched this video yet, just made this comment immediately. Edit: LOL I'm from Northern Ireland and that graphic would mean vote TUV (or DUP I guess, we don't really do colours, that's the rest of the UK) to kick out.... nobody? We're like the one place that doesn't do colours in politics except nationalists which do use green. Excessively.
Here in Brazil, red is Communism, purple is Anarcho-Communism, orange is Liberal Socialism, blue is center-right Social-Democracy, green is Conservative right, yellow is Libertarianism, light green is also Environmentalism.
I’ve been learning more about electoral politics in other countries in my free time so when I look back at US politics and see the center left (Democrats) as blue and the center right (Republicans) as red always catches me off guard lol
Wow I just spent 17 minutes learning about colors in politics, knowledge that has no chance of having any practical benefit to my day to day life. And I loved it.
Sweden has 8 parties in the parlament, and 4 party colours. Social Democrats and Left are red; Moderates, Christian and Liberals are blue; Centre and Green are green; Sweden Democrats are yellow. - The two red parties and the Green Party are part of a block know as the Red Greens without specified colour, and the blue parties and the Centre Party are part of a block known as the Alliance being orange.
Guys, you got it all wrong! "Vote Blue, Removes Stubborn Orange Stains" clearly means you need to choose Squirtle as your starter Pokemon. How could somebody possibly misconstrue that statement?
I'm guessing you know this, but the reason purple is considered the colour of royalty is due to how rare and expensive it used to be to get things like, say, purple cloth. So in some European monarchies, purple was established more as a colour for nobilities. So it's more of the nobility colour than the royal colour
