Beginning with the 2000 presidential election, America has been captivated by this idea of red and blue states. The red states have come to represent the conservative Republican party while the blue states have come to represent the liberal Democratic party. This dichotomy between the red and blue states has been developed over the last twelve years to the point where it is commonplace that people know what the states are and what they represent.
The terms originated on electoral maps in the media during the aforementioned 2000 presidential election, which saw George W. Bush (Republican) defeat Al Gore (Democrat) by an electoral vote of 271 to 266 in an extremely controversial election. Nevertheless, after that polarizing election, the media continued to use the red and blue color scheme to epitomize Republican and Democratic states, respectively, and therefore painting every state with a generalized brush. The true reality of this color scheme system is far more intricate than a simple red/blue dichotomy. In fact, the color scheme used to be reversed up until the 2000 election, where all of a sudden the color shift had seemingly become axiomatic and a new political maxim was created: Democratic states are blue and Republican states are red.
Since 2000, the usage of the terms has been expanded to differentiate between states being perceived as liberal and those perceived as conservative (Red States and Blue States). What this historically means is that during a presidential election, and to a smaller extent during a Congressional election, the color that is allocated to a state usually proposes that said state will pledge their allegiance to one of the two parties. States in the Northeast and in the West have generally voted for the Democratic party, while states in the South and in the Mid-West have generally voted for the Republican party.
This pattern has been consistent for the last few elections. However, the unfortunate dilemma with this color coordination of states is that the media has exacerbated bipartisanship throughout the country by making this red state/blue state method of generalization into a bigger situation than it has to be. This correlates to the ideas of Joel Best in his text “Social Progress and Social Problems: Toward a Sociology of Gloom,” because he discussed how Americans have a tendency to falsely portray smaller problems as being larger than they really are in the grand scheme of things. Instead of just being an organized way of prognosticating future elections, the two parties meticulously study these colorfully dichotomous maps in order to not only benefit their respective campaigns, but to use the data for ammunition against their opponent.
The media endlessly repeats the images of the red states/blue states to the point where it becomes a visual onslaught of the polarization within our country. By allowing the media to entice people to perceive the nation into two camps inherently ignores the group of Americans that do not vote at all and, in the meantime, inherently exacerbates the divisiveness of the Democrats and Republicans.
If you sort of ponder a little bit, it all goes back to a basic sociological idea: Labeling. Labels represent a way of differentiating and identifying people usually in a discriminatory way. The media labels a state to be Democratic and you automatically think “socially liberal, left-wing, progressive, and blue.” On the other hand, the media labels a state to be Republican and you automatically think “socially conservative, right-wing, and red.” That labeling of the states permeates down to the people where nowadays being a Democrat or being a Republican almost wholly defines you; it’s like a political plague that you want to avoid yet don’t want to miss out on, especially in an election year.
This labeling process through the use of “red state/blue state” can be construed as one of the social movements that Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello, and Brendan Smith were talking about in their text “Globalization and Social Movements,” where they basically talked about how various “social movements can be a powerful force for social change” as they are formed by a multitude of different groups ready to impose their own certain set of social norms upon society. The red state/blue state color scheme is now a ubiquitous presence in our modern day society, but that is only the case because the media started it as a social movement sixteen years ago to differentiate between Democratic states and Republican states.
In conclusion, the real distribution of voters cannot be as easily described as the simple state level red/blue color scheme indicates that it can be. The tangible reality is that the voting public is large and racially/ethnically diverse within each state and throughout the country, and that is why it is useless to completely generalize a state and all of its people into one party allegiance.
There are definitely certain patterns that might hold from election to election, especially nowadays where bipartisanship is at an all time high, but nothing is completely certain and the two parties will continue to do their best to target swing states. The margin of victory has actually been close in battleground states, and really with the exception of a few states, most states are open for victory as long as a competent candidate is available.
The problem becomes people not listening to the issues and just looking at the party affiliation with either candidate. While I believe that the red/blue color scheme is beneficial to better understanding the election process and to being able to prognosticate the winner, I do not appreciate the dichotomous color scheme over-generalizing an entire state into one party when most states are pretty evenly divided between both parties involved, particularly when having to decide between liars and demagogues.
