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Recently it has become commonplace in America for commentators and the public to use the terms “red” and “blue” to refer to perceived cultural differences in America and American politics. Although a political divide may exist in America today, these particular terms are inaccurate and reductive. This article presents research from social psychology demonstrating that the increased use of these terms is likely to increase the conflict between political groups in America by making political conflict salient in nonpolitical contexts, reducing the ability of Americans to form multifaceted complex identities, pushing Americans to misperceive political in-groups and out-groups, and contributing to a “spiral of silence.” An alternative model for discussing cultural differences is proposed.

Tuesday’s exit polls added to the sense that the red–blue schism might be more intractable than we would have liked to believe. That’s because it is defined less by issues of the day than by battling cultures.

—Los Angeles Times editorial, November 4, 2004

There is a growing perception of a divide in American politics. Following the contested elections of 2000 and throughout the election cycle of 2004, pundits declared that the American electorate was deeply divided across ideological terms. Along with the increasing focus on the divide in American politics have come new metaphors for the ideological split. The most common has been the use of the terms red and blue to denote conservative and liberal ideologies, respectively. This color coding comes from the electoral maps used by news agencies to report on the outcomes of presidential voting (see Figure 1). This type of map became especially popular in 2000 following the contested election, when a county-by-county map using the red and blue color scheme was published by USA Today and quickly seized on by commentators as a method of demonstrating the areas...