The Political Meaning of Colors Around the World
Let's look at the politics of color! This video was sponsored by Blinkist. The first 100 people to sign up using this link will get an unlimited one-week trial and 25% off full membership: www.blinkist.com/JJMcCullough
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Guest Voice by Half-Asleep Chris: / @halfasleepchris
Why do political parties have different colors? Why are conservatives sometimes blue and socialists always red? Why do American party colors not match other places? And why does no one like purple? Let's learn!
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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.
That is something, the austrian Green Party actually did, back in 2017.
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??
It would make sense if Anakin Skywalker was in charge. He's all in favor of that.
In spain it's Vote Right to wipe out centre-right, and far right would be green
In Scotland, “vote blue to wipe out orange stains” could be interpreted “Vote nationalist to wipe out the tories”
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
Lol
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 😤
In Israel every party is varying shades of blue, green, or yellow except the labor party and shas it is confusing while looking at a diagram.
Pretty sure any romanian politician would wipe out their own coalition of you payed them enough.
@@Insert_Name-bo4cd this has always annoyed me
JJ: “in China red is the color of ...” My Brain : the CCP
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.
@Herdan To be honest I prefer the previous 5-stripe (Red, Yellow, Blue White, Black) flag to represent all of China.
@HerdanThe colour red in first one though, represents the Han ethnicity.
In China vote red OR ELSE! Looking at you Hong Kong....
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).
That's remarkably confusing!
That's why sweden is better
That's unsane (tho i think switzerland has a far-right "democratic center party" whose logo looks like it's a brand of butter)
That's because, when they were formed, their politics were considered leftist and radical-leftist
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.
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.
In Austria, the conservative party completely switched from black to cyan and call themselves "The new people's party"
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).
@@qugart. They used to use red, but lately they switched to orange. However black is still the color most associated with them.
@@JJMcCullough also fun fact: the BC Liberal Party is their conservative party
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.
@@mmm7528 Wow, I actually never realized this. So the fight goes even deeper than I thought.
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
@@irthamepali Wow, you still have old fashioned communists running around Greece?
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”
During the 76 election some networks represented jimmy carter with yellow on maps
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.
Yeah it was made from extremely rare snails
in spain the republican flag has purple in it
It's amazing how much meaning and symbolism we put into things that were chosen mostly out of convenience.
My theory is that they just picked a color randomly, and then try to justify using that color.
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.
Ok
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/KZhead, 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 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.
Oh yes, I have heard that watermelon term used to mean environmentalists. I think Thatcher said that once about the Green Party.
@@Ratchet4647 correct
@@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.
Green is only on the flag
@@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.
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 :)
People in the comments: the politics of spelling the word ‘color’ or ‘colour’
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)
The real political debate
This has been a grueling one for spellologists
@@luapslev5826 The study of spellcasting, i presume.
Couleur
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.
that’s understood but i believe his point in the video was more so that he doesn’t feel like it’s royalty, nor do the people around him
@@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 also the Phoenicians and Romans and Byzantines using it to represent power, wealth and royalty
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.
Thank you for your work! It was nice to meet you on the train the other day!
It was great meeting you my friend!
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”.
Arent the pirates also orange? I dont know how big they are anymore though
"Vote blue to wipe out the orange" My first thoughts went straight to British politics
Yes
That really did happen last election, didn't it.
Blue and orange both have loyalist connotations though.
@@23Stork he was referring to the Tories and labour/lib dems
@@Gallalad1 Lib Dems use yellow (and aren't really relevant anymore at all) and Labour use Red
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.
Indeed it predates the Byzantines even, as that is the directly descendant of the Ancient Romans use of purple for their imperial togas.
@@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.
@@TheTablePaper Yeah, something like “People of/from the (land of) purple).
Ya I’ve always heard that second half
Yeah. Tyrian purple dye was so rare only the rich could afford it, and that’s how we get the word tyrant if I recall correctly
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.
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
The Half-Asleep Chris cameo was a welcome surprise. Did anyone else think this video came out a little later in the day than usual?
Yeah, a couple hours later I think.
JJ slept in on a Saturday morning? Oh the shame of it! 😲
I was concerned we was gonna miss the usual Saturday upload
Time changes.
Fun fact: The center-right party in portugal is called the Social Democratic party.
they should really change the name to reflect that
Thats really strange any reason why they do that.
@@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.
What are their policies then?
In Denmark it's even worse. Their right-wing party is the "left party" and their centrist party is the "radical left".
J.J. You are so amazing !! I'm saving this one under "favourites". Have to, must watch this one again. And again. Ach, thank you for being as you are. Hugs
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, 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.
@@I_WANT_MY_SLAW "STOLEN BY THE ALPHABET PEOPLE" That's the most hilarious LGBT-phobic thing I ever read lmfao
@@Writer_Productions_Map how can I be homophobic? My bitch is gay.
This could be an entire video.
That is the case in post-soviet states, too
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
I'm Canadian, but I see British socialists use the term "Blue Labour" as well. Either way, they're correct, and the Blairites suck.
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.
@@TheBreadthatcausedLesMis yellow tory is what the SNP was called for decades
Conservatives anywhere else in the world: vote blue no matter who.
Conservatives in America vote red because ABC said Red for Reagan in 1984
@@AVeryRandomPerson ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣠⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢰⠤⠤⣄⣀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣾⣟⠳⢦⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠉⠉⠉⠉⠒⣲⡄ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿⡇ ⡱⠲⢤⣀⠀⠀⠀⢸⠀⠀⠀1984⠀⣠⠴⠊⢹⠁ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⢻⠓⠀⠉⣥⣀⣠⠞⠀⠀⠀⢸⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⡴⠋⠀⠀⠀⢸⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⡾⣄⠀⠀⢳⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⢠⡄⢀⡴⠁2021⠀ ⡞⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⣠⢎⡉⢦⡀⠀⠀⡸⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⡼⣣⠧⡼⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢠⠇⠀ ⠀⢀⡔⠁⠀⠙⠢⢭⣢⡚⢣⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣇⠁⢸⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⠀⠀ ⠀⡞⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⢫⡉⠀⠀⠀⠀⢠⢮⠈⡦⠋⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣸⠀⠀ ⢀⠇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⢦⡀⣀⡴⠃⠀⡷⡇⢀⡴⠋⠉⠉⠙⠓⠒⠃⠀⠀ ⢸⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠁⠀⠀⡼⠀⣷⠋⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⡞⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡰⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⢧⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠣⣀⠀⠀⡰⠋⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
@@connoromalley4004 How long did it take you to make that? 🤣
@@internetual7350 I did not make it
@@connoromalley4004 Who the hell would lol?
11:09 It always surprises me when I hear Chris' voice do an occasional voiceover for you, but it always makes me very happy!
I love the way the JJ's videos are edited. The little Blue song cameo was excellent.
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.
@@HamishDuh2nd the dude loves everyone, it’s great
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.
@@johnnyblocks7956 å
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.
Are you referring to Lega Nord?
@@BoraCM Just "Lega" nowdays but yes lmao.
@@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 totally thought of that graphic from the Canadian context. So cool! Loving the hair, by the way.
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
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”
Apparently, Keir is washing it even more so he could throw up a white surrender flag at the local elections last week.
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.
We should start using the term “glass of water with a D” Democrats after what Nancy Pelosi said once.
@@ASMRDoodlez Pelosi didn’t just insult her constituents, she also insulted AOC’s constituents.
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.
Very creative topic, another great video!
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
But DO they keep the tradition? That’s what I don’t understand.
@@JJMcCullough They do not. Mostly as purple was for a long time the colour of catholic bishops and it thus became much more associated 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.
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.
Yellow is the universal colour of classical liberalism, I dont know why he didn't bring it up
Liberal party is known for privatization, but duterte supporters called them communist.
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.
@@DAMNITRI I mean, to be fair, a lot of parties doesn't have solid ideologies in the Philippines
That transition into the Blinkist ad called me out big time lool
omg, I just discovered your channel! It's amazing, congratulations! Greetings from the exotic New West, BC!
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
@@rfl8359 Oh definitely you're right, but that only dates back to 2014.
Huh, i never realized how recent the American party colors were.
Growing up in the pre-2K U.S., I never saw color in use in American politics, except red for Communism of course. The biggest distinctions I saw between parties, aside from actual policies, was which animals were used to depict them in political cartoons.
I'm so glad that the Democratic Party got the color blue. Republicans lie so much as it is about Democrats being Socialist. It would be twice as bad if the Democrats were stuck with the red color.
@@greywolf7577 its annoyingly their go to to delegitimize like any arguements "YOU FUCKIN COMMIE/SOCIALIST"
True. If you look at election signs they always displayed red white and blue (look for Gore/Lieberman and Bush/cheney signs they’re almost identical)
@@OALM well makes sense the US flag
Thanks for this video, this is a great help
great topic !
2:20AM (Bangladesh Time), was going to go to sleep soon, but if I see a JJ video notification, I click on it.
1:50 am india time, but same case!!
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
Having a single colour representing a party seems to mostly be a recent thing, but using multiple colours seems to go back a long way
Just spotted the Ganesh from your Instagram today!
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.
Imagine JJ with a ponytail and glasses.
I'm down with it. Down meaning up.
Oh please no
It drove me nuts to see a pair of glasses lens down on the table behind him. >:(
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!
Great to hear some love for my area. Up the Preston
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".
I live in Preston. I never would’ve expected to hear my small town talked about in JJ’s videos but that’s pretty cool
JJ: it would have been confusing if the agrarian conservatives held on to green while the green party also participated in elections Australia: :)
I wud rly hope that the green party wud take the chance and become the Bright Green Party :P
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.
I forgot to mention red & dark red. Katter confusing people is what he does best, bless the man
In the Netherlands, green is used by Christian Democrats, social liberals, the Green Party, and the Animal’s rights party.
@@Tolyuhh why don’t the liberals and nationals merge?
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.
I do enjoy watching you bounce around the screen. One day I would like to know just how you manage to do that.
In Japan, only opposition parties have official party color, LDP and Komeito have no solid party color, so their posters are in many different colors.
Everyone have a great day
Also first
Thanks,man
No, in fact now I'll have a terrible day, just because I don't have to do what you tell me.
No
Don’t tell me what to do
Your accent is fascinating to me Like, I adore color theory stuff, the video is well done, I've learned a lot. But this is the firat video from your channel I've seen, your voice is unique to my Texan ears. Anyways, keep up the good work
I just noticed your Mr. Saturn plushy in the background, I love it! Where did you get it?
Last time I was this early, JJ still had a beard
Last time I was this early, we still had a Yugoslavia
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.
Because it's red (SDP and Left), yellow (Swedish), and green (Greens and Center)?
@@adrielsebastian5216 A red-soil government is when the main government parties are the Social Democrats and the Centre Party.
Belgium now has the Vivaldi government! (Vivaldi -> 'Four Seasons' -> blue liberals + red socialists + green ecologists + orange christian democrats)
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).
Nice Video Mate
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.
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.
Wow, I listen and read the Bulwark. Never knew you and Tim were friends!
My ADD brain is very intrigued by the Blinkist concept. I'll definitely check them out!
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.
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.
Purple is so often thought of as the Royal color because back in the day the only way to make purple dye was very expensive so at the time only royals had it.
Adding to German coalition colour schemes 15:43: There's also a "Kenya coalition" consisting of the aforementioned CDU, Social Democrats and Greens
"Vote right to take out the center right" Based
Speaking of popular slogans, I think "Inquilab Zindabad!" is a popular revolutionary slogan in India, meaning, "Long live the revolution!"
Great job, JJ 👍as always. And I have to admit I have total hair envy😉🥰
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.
I see you have “Flags through the Ages and Across the World” in your desk. Good taste.
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.
and Brazil means red hot wood. Also, the brazilian flag was stained red due to the many people killed by Bozo's policies.
Loved how Northern Ireland got bagpipe music when it came on screen. Nice touch.
Excellent stuff JJ, lots of content! Although I noticed you forgot to cover the BC Marijuana Party. Since the Green Party kind of took their colour, they had to resort to this tobacco coloured greenish, yellowy-grey sort of thing.
In Indonesia, where the political spectrum of the parties itself is often confused (all of them seem to adopt a pragmatic, centric stance to everything as long as it benefits them) the usage of colours seems to have no deep thinking behind it and every new party seems to just pick whatever colour is in vacancy at any particular moment. However, the new Partai Solidaritas Indonesia (Indonesian Solidarity Party), which was formed only a few years ago and is undisguisedly liberal, seems to have picked the colour red to deliberately associate themselves with the broader idea and history of red as being a symbol of revolution.
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.
French person here Red flags were a symbol of royal authority At the time of the monarchist regime they was often someone close to the king which would wave a red flag in public to incite the people to disperse of calming themselves The third revolution happened because king Louis Phillipe forbid republican banquet, and when the people came to demand the re-opening of said banquet they were often meet with officer waving red flags Hence why the révolutionnaires used red flags with slogan as a symbol of challengeming the royal authority
Bro Half-Asleep Chris!!!
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
Black is also associated with conservatives, and then there's pink and orange for lots of different groups.
@@Alias_Anybody tmk Black is associated with anarchists
@@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)
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
JJ Got a sponsor, congrats buddy!
In Finland we also have a few of colour/theme based party coalitions. Our centrist democrats (SDP) + our agrarian party (Keskusta) = Red Ochre Coalition (red ochre being a type of traditional earth based paint used on houses) . There has also been a few instances of so many parties being in the goverment that it's just called a rainbow coalition.
I really like your videos. Even if I don't agree with your political views, I still trust your facts!
I'm a registered member of the New Democratic Party, so when I first saw that Meme, I was like "dude, seriously?!"
God, I just read NPD, the german right-extremist party and I was shocked.
@@kevn6187 I think you misread my comment
@@Teag_Brohman15 I know, I just wanted to mention this misreading
Living in South Africa I've found it intersting how much people wear their political colours, like on lots of protests or Winnie Mandela's memorial everyone is either fully clad in yellow & green of ANC or the head to toe red (with berets) of the EFF. Even the DA's blue can get a good showing at thier rallies. In the UK no-one wears political colours - the exceptions being the leaders' ties on debates & ppl selling merch at conferences/protests
Nice, Half-Asleep Chris cameo.
I love how he spelled it color without the u. It’s a fun detail when you know what he thinks about false Canadian cultural items.
I did a whole video about dumb “Canadian spelling.”
@@JJMcCullough Yeah, that’s what made me think of it. Keep up the good work!
''Purple is the royal color.'' Yeah say that to Spain 😂
Hey, that’s true! It’s the anti-monarchist republican colour there, right? They used to have it on their flag.
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
Bravo!
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.
Interesting point about there being a cheap colour. In Canada, it's undeniably No Name Yellow.
@@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 💀
I feel like the rather calm colour blue is a good fit for the more "anti-revolutionary" conservative/liberal parties
Belgians also give metaphors to coalitians. Like Swedish coalition, Burgundian coalition both referencing flag/coat of arms colors. And then there's the Vivaldi coalition wich is a coalition of four parties (Blue, green, red and orange) which, as you may have guessed, refferences Vivaldi's "the four seasons" in their respective colors.
I have a theory of why dark blue would be considered a "royal" color, at least in the UK. During the Georgian Era, the British army had facings of different colors to distinguish units. And generally, Royal regiments (those representing the king) had Dark blue facings. It's possible but just a guess based on what I know.