10-19-2020, 10:30 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-19-2020, 10:39 PM by Eric the Green.)
(10-10-2020, 11:31 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: I was browsing on YouTube yesterday. At one point, instead of the usual ad, there was this commentary that stated that America is almost two nations now, Red and Blue.
The commentary went on to list contrasting differences between red and blue. Such as small government and lower taxes in red, versus larger government and higher taxes in blue.
I would say that's a good summary of the red slogan, and the blue point of view as seen from the red side. That was very likely the viewpoint from which the video you saw was made. I may have also seen it.
It's more complicated than that, because the red side is not fully libertarian. It wants the government to do things too, like outlaw abortion and gay marriage, send police to quell non-existent riots and restore "law and order," spend billions of dollars and thousands of lives on unnecessary military equipment and wars, and so on like that.
But the reds knock government for the things that government does to benefit people. The reds say we should be self-reliant and not be dependent on government, which to them means they don't want to pay taxes to help poor people of color. The reds are often business people or rural ranchers and store owners and such who don't want government to tax them and regulate them. They are most concerned about the threat of "socialism" and "communism." And today, their reflexive patriotism translates most readily into opposition to immigration and affirmative action and other expressions of white identity politics. Where some of the reds may agree with the pro-labor blues is in opposition to free trade, although for others tariffs are just more government regulation of business. Today this "freedom from the government" meme and resistance to helping people through taxes and regulations has been translated into resistance to government leadership and action on the coronavirus, as well as opposition to "socialist" health care reform.
Red and blue are leftovers of the two revolutionary movements that shaped our society up through the sixties. The reds reduce democratic liberty and individual rights to liberty expressed in the American Revolution to liberty from paying taxes and freedom for business to do whatever it wants, regardless of its effects on others. The blues are a watered-down version of workers and union movements that is called democratic socialism in more-advanced countries. It's the difference between "we're in this together" and "you're on your own."
The response to the sixties and to the issues of today also shape the reds and blues. The reds resist the social and cultural revolution of hippies, drugs, gun control, questioning religious authority, abortion, women's lib and other social-justice warfare and "political correctness" issues, while blues respond to the need to end needless wars and militarism, to the threat to our environment, and to support for diverse ethnic and racial justice. In other words, the blues are also greens.