Talk:Red state

How would Global Warming cause the red sates to become blue? 75.117.235.151 13:21, 9 December 2007 (EST)

Err ... Water? Susan^{purrrrr ...}

I always thought that this was a great funny, but I guess it's not as intuitive as I would have imagined. Maybe (probably), I think too highly of my comedic ability. --Edgerunner⁷⁶ 09:45, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Red States and Slavery.

Look at this map (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2004_US_elections_map_electoral_votes.png) and tell me again about the relationship between slavery and red-statedness. Yeah, a lot of the slave states are now "red" - but at first glance, it looks like a pretty equal number of the red states were never slave states -I haven't sat down and counted, but I'm willing do bet that more red states were not slave states than were. PFoster 09:29, 10 January 2008 (EST)

I agree with you if we disregard 2008 vs 1860. I was actually only comfortable undoing your rollback by adding the addendum that the connection between Red States and slavery only extended to states that existed in 1860 and are now consider "red". The other red states of today are basically a divide by zero. I'm not against removing the text if we get a strong consensus for it. --Edgerunner⁷⁶ 09:41, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Indiana and Ohio were free, as was Iowa. Nebraska (I believe) was also free. Otherwise, yes. Researcher 10:42, 10 January 2008 (EST)

I'll admit that I am biased on this subject. My perspective is from the point of all of the states that would have been labeled as "slave" are now "red". I see it as (personal opinion here) the values that once labeled a state "slave" now label them as "red" and this vile darkness has crept into places like Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia, and the other states that didn't exist at that time. I will say that we might be better served with shades of red. Since I see northern central red as something fairly different than Deep South red. Actually, we'd be better off with a singular purple map, which is, in many ways, how the map really "looks". --Edgerunner⁷⁶ 10:50, 10 January 2008 (EST)

I've said it before on this site and I'll say it again - attempts to paint the Republican party as racist are facile and overlook the fact that racism pervades American society and the American political system at large - not just the Republican Party or the right side of the spectrum. Pointing out a correlation between a "Red" state (and Edge is right, they're all "Purple," really) and whether or not that state had slavery is a really unsubtle way of trying to paint the Republican Party as racist in a way that holds no intellectual water. I'd like to see the entire passage go. PFoster 11:01, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Although my "painting" of the Republican party as racist is somewhat hyperbole, I do believe that there is more than a grain of truth in there also. I speak of post-1960s America. Nixon's Solid South strategy smackes of racism. Talk radio mushheads would like you to believe that people gave support to the Republican party for economic reasons, but that doesn't become even remotely true until the mid-1970s. The Civil Rights issue of the 60s was the initial reason for changes in support.

The point is that the South was solidly Democratic until the mid 20th century. The reason for that support was based on a fairly unhealthy dose of racism. The South now supports the Republican party. It's the parties that have changed. The reasons behind support for one party or another hasn't. That, I feel, is the problem. --Edgerunner⁷⁶ 11:11, 10 January 2008 (EST)