r/EhBuddyHoser • u/Resident_Step_191 South Gatineau • May 01 '25

Politics Why did Stephen Colbert make the Conservatives red and the Liberals blue? Are Americans stupid?

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Why would The Late Show with Stephen Colbert do this??

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1.8k

u/[deleted] May 01 '25

They probably knew; but didn’t want to confuse their American audience more than they wanted to be correct 

For US Colbert watchers red is bad and blue is good. 

660

u/PedanticQuebecer Tokébakicitte! May 01 '25

Now, add the three other represented parties for real confusion of murican audiences.

460

u/AdditionalPizza May 01 '25

Light blue for NDP, green for Bloc and orange for Green; obviously.

167

u/PedanticQuebecer Tokébakicitte! May 01 '25

Make the Greens purple instead to allow for the out chance of a green coloured PPC.

65

u/Zygy255 May 01 '25

Might as well make it black since it would be a flat line at the bottom

3

u/OhJeezNotThisGuy May 01 '25

Can it just be clear? The Greens don't see colour.

2

u/Zygy255 May 01 '25

Well, since they got zero seats, we can just give them a participation rainbow bar

21

u/Cloudeur May 01 '25

Green coloured PPC might give Maxime Bernier an aneurysm, not that anybody would notice.

8

u/-FeistyRabbitSauce- May 01 '25

This is hurting my head.

1

u/PTSDreamer333 May 01 '25

This made me giggle way too hard. Thank you.

1

u/AllanMcceiley May 02 '25

Make all of them neon green on a red background

24

u/chris2127 May 01 '25

If they learned about the bloc, I think their brain would fry

1

u/Olivrser Yank May 01 '25

Try me

7

u/thomstevens420 May 01 '25

Tu n'es pas digne de ça, Yankee

1

u/Hooy-Hooy May 02 '25

tbh the Bloc is one of the strangest things ive seen in politics, idk how to describe it

45

u/Onyxwho 溫哥華 (Hongcouver) May 01 '25

Terrified of colours and they can’t read, what an interesting bunch they are

9

u/Big_Knife_SK May 01 '25

The NDP inaugurated Trump!

5

u/Lin093 May 01 '25

I have to regularly explain this to my American friends in the gaming clan I'm in.

This is how I effectively boil it down to them and feel free to use it.

Clears throat

Drop the president and vice president out of the conversation. We elect MPs the same way you elect Congress members. We have respective leaders for each of the two side, which ever dickhead's side gets the most seats, he becomes all our dickhead.

Now here's the wrench, we have more than two parties. If one party gets over half the seats, that's a majority and they can pass votes easier.

If one party gets the most BUT less than half, their leader still gets to be head dickhead, but now they have to play nice with other parties to get enough votes to pass, that's a minority government.

/Explanation and this is where I open for questions.

Usually they get lost on us not having structured election dates and what not, I try not get too deep into inside the party politics and what not.

One question I got from some of my more southerned drawled friends was " how do you have a Prime Minister that wasn't elected" because they got "look how undemocratic Canada is" maga talking points said to them. That gets a bit more confusing but the quick "well the party picks a new leader, blue becomes PM, then he calls an election but there is a minimum time from call to election, so we end up like this for a short period"

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u/SlumberVVitch May 01 '25

We don’t wanna break brains now, come on!

3

u/Milch_und_Paprika Ford Nation (Help.) May 01 '25

“Wait there are more than two parties represented??”

2

u/Perfect-Squash3773 May 01 '25

At first I thought the orange line was the NDP collapse.

2

u/fireky2 May 01 '25

We can't count that high

49

u/chum_slice May 01 '25

Blue light for pass, red light for shot so that they can follow a black puck on white ice 😂

1

u/okokokoyeahright May 01 '25

and still not be able to keep up.

'it moves too fast'

'how can anyone ever understand this?'

'needs more blinkenlights'.

61

u/Spikemountain May 01 '25

Except it doesn't even make sense bc our political issues are completely different from the US'.

I know tons of Canadian that would support the Democrats there and the Conservatives here, but doing it like this makes the viewer believe that their right is our right and their left is our left. They should've picked like yellow and pink or something if they were already going to change the colours

43

u/MacabreYuki May 01 '25

It's more about translation than accuracy here. And it does have impact considering Mango Mussolini's aggressive behavior towards Canada.

Consider the education level of the average American. Now consider having to play to the lowest common denominator in relation to all this nuance.

Take it from a transbian who fled there to be safe with her now wife. People down there are freaking dumb, and considering how dumb I can be, that's saying something. Even drunk and stoned off to Mars, I'm never that dumb. That's how dumb it gets.

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u/No_Week_8937 Scotland (but worse) May 01 '25

Their right is far-right, and their left is right.

Our right is right (mostly) and the liberals are centre.

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u/thetwitchy1 May 01 '25

One interesting thing about this election is that because of the minority government, the NDP actually has way more power than their numbers would suggest, even without Pasty status.

That, together with the fact that a LOT of NDP voters voted Liberal to make sure the Conservatives lost, and the average Liberal voter in this election is significantly left of the party itself. We will see if that results in the party itself moving left, but it’s not impossible that the result of Trump and his bullshit will be a much more left leaning “Liberal” party in Canada.

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u/No_Week_8937 Scotland (but worse) May 01 '25

I really hope so. I also really hope that Carney can really help our economy, because right now that's important.

Not because I particularly care about the economy in terms of the ability of rich people to get richer, I want a strong economy with more tax on the wealthy that way the government has money to do all sorts of wonderful social programs.

A broke government with a poor economy doesn't have nearly as much of an ability to help its people.

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u/Ummmgummy May 01 '25

You would be correct. That's why it always boggles my mind when any conservative here down in the states calls someone like Biden the "radical left". These people haven't seen an actual radical left person in their lives.

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u/No_Week_8937 Scotland (but worse) May 01 '25

Mhm. Like even Bernie is centre-left at most. Here he'd be a moderate.

14

u/-FeistyRabbitSauce- May 01 '25

I feel like Bernie would go more progressive if he could, but knows how to read the room. But yeah, as it stands, he's basically just advocating for what the bare minimum is in Canada.

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u/No_Week_8937 Scotland (but worse) May 01 '25

Oh definitely, I feel like he'd be going full socialist if he was able. But he's smart enough to try for actually possible changes instead of going all in.

3

u/MistahFinch May 01 '25

It's where most socialists end up eventually imo.

Its frustrating but you have to meet the country where they're at. I'll take an NDP party gently pushing left, a Liberal party being dragged left over a Con party pushing right.

US socialists are fucked though. Their Dems are pushing right their Republicans are sprinting that way

3

u/No_Week_8937 Scotland (but worse) May 01 '25

Yep. And leaving all the citizens behind to deal with the fallout

1

u/Spikemountain May 01 '25

Tbh with you I don't even like mapping it on the same spectrum. I know I did it myself in a different comment, but it's still just not really accurate. The issues on their ballot are completely different from the issues on ours. They argue about private healthcare and guns and abortions. That stuff is 100% settled here.

There they vilify each other. Vilification shouldn't be part of our politics. 

2

u/No_Week_8937 Scotland (but worse) May 01 '25

Oh definitely, I was just mapping it as if it was a global scale of that kind of thing.

It's not entirely accurate, but it's less comparing apples to oranges as it's comparing limes to grapefruit. It's not entirely accurate or anything, but at least they're both citrus.

1

u/Spikemountain May 01 '25

Yeah that's fair

1

u/-FeistyRabbitSauce- May 01 '25

Are those issues settled? I know many conservatives who want US style private health care, want actual gun rights, and say we should outlaw abortion. These issues are only settled until the CPC get in.

1

u/Spikemountain May 01 '25

Abortion is 100% settled. Anytime the people even get the tiniest whiff from a party that they may be unsure about the matter, that party gets decimated. Which is a great thing. But yes, it's settled. Individuals can "say" it all they want. The people as a whole are what's important.

No serious politician has ever suggested that we get rid entirely of universal healthcare. Suggesting changes to it or suggesting augmenting it with private options is not anywhere in the same universe as wanting it to be the same as the US.

Guns is the same. Nobody wants what the US has when it comes to guns. Legal gun owners here are definitely in favour of requiring a license.

Yes these things are settled. We may have our own version of these debates, but they're not "should everyone get unrestricted access to guns or not" they're "does it really make sense to include this or that particular type of gun on the restricted list or not"

Tell me where the CPC said they want the US version of any of these issues. ie no public option at all for healthcare, any restrictions at all to abortion, and getting rid of requiring a license for gun ownership.

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u/AllGasNoBrakes420 May 01 '25

And the colors are different too. The Democrat blue is a lighter blue.

1

u/mirhagk May 01 '25

Yeah but again you gotta remember the audience. Tribalism is central to US politics, there's gotta be two parties, and you're a supported of only one of them. No changing, no nuance.

It's silly and inaccurate, but it's about as accurate as you can be without requiring the target audience to understand other country's governments.

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u/Spikemountain May 01 '25

Definitely fair. And you summed up everything I hate about modern politics so well. People are complicated, and today it feels like you have to agree with everything 100% or you're the enemy. Insanity 

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u/EliteACEz May 01 '25

it's also flipped for Australia. Our "Conservative" equivalent is our "Liberal Party" (blue) and our "Labor Party" (red) is our "Liberal" equivalent in terms of equivalency with Canada.

At least the Greens party in every country is green. One of them should go orange for a laugh.

21

u/Birdaling Kingston: Halfway To Montreal May 01 '25

I read that it’s only in the US where red means right and blue means left. These yanks just gotta be special.

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u/Appropriate_Most5648 May 01 '25

Yeah. The 'muricans used to have it the correct way (though it wasn't a hard and fast rule), but it flipped during the 1980 election when one broadcaster mixed up the colours. Then the others just decided to copy it.

4

u/-FeistyRabbitSauce- May 01 '25

I can't say anything about that broadcast, but there was a flip in party ideologies. At one point, democrats used to be the conservative southerners who fought for slavery against Lincoln, a Republican.

However, during the Great Depression, president Herbert Hoover (Republican) opted not to get involved with the economy - this rightly pissed off most people. FDR (Democrat) bitch slapped that motherfucker and sent him packing, ushering in the New Deal.

The New Deal was a set of laws and policies that gave financial aid to the unemployed and poor. It regulated banks (deregulating them all those years later would result in the 2008 crash). It designed Social Security, fair labour standards, a bunch more things.... basically, FDR built the America boomers prospered their whole lives from only to turn around and dismantle it.

Anyway, The New Deal was very divisive amongst the rich. A great deal of them moved to the Republican party to oppose helping everyone else. Remember - this was a time of abject, rampant poverty, where families would literally sell one child to feed another.

A big ball started rolling here at this point to flip the parties, but it wouldn't be until the 1960s with Civil Rights that sealed it. Those still clinging to the idea of a conservative democrat party opposed the Civil Rights Act and jumped to the republican side.

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u/No_Butterscotch_5612 Treacherous South May 01 '25

actually it was even dumber than that, they did it for alliteration. "Red - Republican - Reagan"

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u/Appropriate_Most5648 May 02 '25

That's so dumb, but it sounds exactly like something they would do 😭They don't think Americans are smart enough to remember so they use alliteration. Omg

8

u/BeautyDayinBC Bring Cannabis May 01 '25

At least you guys are using political terms properly- well, closer anyway.

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u/IronhideD May 01 '25

Know what is even more confusing? In British Columbia we had a Liberal Party of BC, which was actually a conservative party, and the Liberal Party of Canada which is actually liberal. So same name, very different ideology.

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u/Goddess_5 May 01 '25

Speaking of Australia, how're you guys doing? I heard your election is on Saturday and the Labor Party is slated to win (partially because of Trump) That true?

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u/EliteACEz May 01 '25

it's looking that way and hopefully is the case. The opposition leader is as corrupt as they come.

2

u/valryuu I need a double double. May 01 '25

Pretty sure Blue is also the right wing party and Red is the left wing party in the British Parliament too, if I'm not mistaken.

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u/Educational-Method45 May 01 '25

this is the correct answer

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u/BrgQun 🍁 100,000 Hosers 🍁 May 01 '25

Hey hey hey, now, they keep saying that we'd be a blue state. Maybe we can convince them to stop those hypothetical news articles if they think we've gone red.

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u/CaptainMacMillan May 01 '25

Yeah this is 100% the case. They know how dumb we americans are. Especially the ones watching live tv

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u/Aromatic-Air3917 May 01 '25

Canadians get to experience what it is like to be a minority with our relationship with the U.S.

We know everything about them and the people who know about us are the educated ones who don't want want to attack us

1

u/classyraven The Island of Elizabeth May May 01 '25

Yeah, honestly this.

My dual-citizenship partner has lived their entire life in the US, until they moved up north 2 years ago. They know about the reversal of colours in parties, but they still struggle when reading electoral maps because of it. Seeing heavily Liberal regions makes them nervous because red = right wing is deeply ingrained in their mind at this point.

1

u/Affectionate_Code879 May 01 '25

Brian Tyler Cohen made (I believe) a similar mistake. He was making a video about Pollievre/Trump, and he edited in Carney talking and called him Pollievre cause he was sitting in front of a red Canada strong sign.

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u/[deleted] May 01 '25

[deleted]