[SEQ RERUN] A Fable of Science and Politics

At one of my first jobs, the employees in my department wore either blue or green ID badges around our necks.

The blue badges were for the permanent employees (actually employed by the company) and the green badges were for contractors (actually employed by a staffing firm). The permanent employees had health insurance, higher status, company perks and worked on a salary. The contractors were paid by the hour, had lower status, used a time card, had more supervision, and had less flexible scheduling.

At the time, I hadn't heard the story of the Blue and Green Romans, but in undergrad we learned about a psychology experiment on ingroups and outgroups where they divided subjects into Blues and Greens. I found it hilarious that the company had decided to literally label their employees blue and green, as if setting the stage for an us-versus-them experiment.

This must have been said before, but when it's specifically about American politics, the metaphor of "blue versus green" standing for "red versus blue versus green-which-is-more-like-blue-than-like-red" can get pretty confusing. If the phenomenon is so common, surely history has many equally vivid examples.