How political shifts have altered the map of Europe
With 21 European Union member states now under varying degrees of right-wing government, Europe has never been more blue. To see how its political complexion has changed in the 38 years since Britain joined the EEC, click on this interactive map produced by the “Guardian”.
July 30th, 2011 at 11:09 pm
Americans use the exact opposite colors to represent left and right. Democrats are blue and Republicans are red. It was confusing for me to follow because I had to shift my normal color associations. I wonder why it is that America adopted the opposite meanings for the colors?
July 31st, 2011 at 11:41 am
The Democrats = blue and Republicans = red convention in the USA is quite new, Dana. It only dates from 2000, as you’ll see here.
Most other countries of the world – especially in Europe – have long associated red with the Left of the political spectrum, although in the States the whole political spectrum is to the Right of the rest of the democratic world, so in European terms we would proabably colour Democrats as light blue and Republicans as dark blue (and the Tea Party as maybe purple)!