The GOP has only been identified as "red" since 2000. Before 2000, the GOP and Democrats alternated colors on electoral maps every 4 years.

I'm not sure that's true. I recall the current color assignment being in place at least since 1992.

Incidentally, the UK has the "opposite" color pattern (Labour red, Conservative blue), which I must say I find jarring (even if historically understandable).

Also, the electoral map you show makes the GOP look "stronger" mainly because the area of the red states happens to be larger than the more densely populated blue states.

Let's test this. I inverted the colors on that map, so the Democrats are red and the Republicans are blue. Which looks stronger?

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt re: your niceness-related intentions, and explain:

Thank you, because it was frankly shocking ("devastating" might be a tad too strong, though not that much) to find myself accused of non-niceness when I have on several occasions made a point of trying to increase the niceness level of this place, even linking to your post on the subject!

I was certainly right about there having been a misunderstanding. Your comment reveals that you interpreted my words in ways that I did not anticipate. For instance, it never would have occurred to me that use of the second person, as in

Would you say that the teacher "did not grade" the papers, or would you say (as I would insist) that the teacher graded the papers in an unfair manner?

could be construed as "aggressive" or "status-grabbing". I think what happened here was what I had surmised: because my comment was a reply to yours, you interpreted it as if I were speaking directly and specifically to you ("Hey, you, Alicorn, would you really say this?"), when in fact I was addressing you only in a sort of rhetorical way, your mild comment being merely the latest and most proximate component of an unexpected and incomprehensible onslaught of disagreement represented principally by orthonormal's comment and (most particularly) its score.

Despite our shared concern for niceness, it appears we may have substantially different conceptions of what it entails. Consider this:

I honestly don't understand the resistance to conceding me this point.

...you can't get away with this sentence and sound nice.

What?! I thought what I said was exactly the kind of thing a nice, polite person says when they're puzzled in the way I was. As opposed to, e.g. "Are you people out of your freaking minds??" I even added the word "honestly", specifically to signal that I wasn't just being rhetorical: I really genuinely did not understand.

Do people really not understand where I'm coming from here? In this, a place where I thought sympathy for logical precision mixed with skepticism of institutionalized education?

Now you are insinuating that disagreement with you constitutes flouting those values, which is insulting and kind of a cheap shot. (I thought you, a regular contributor to Less Wrong, would have more mindfulness and give a measured, polite reply...!)

Again, how in the world was that impolite? (I suspect this may be a case where we, using only written text, are suffering from the absence of cues such as intonation and facial expression, which can be crucial in communicating "tone".)

The disagreement was, as I have said, unanticipated. The reason I didn't anticipate it did indeed have to do with my model of readers' attitudes toward verbal precision and toward the educational system, represented in this case by the sort of teacher who would say "I won't grade it" rather than "I will give you a score of 0". How was communicating this insulting or a cheap shot?

Exactly what mistake do you think I'm making, all ye hordes-of-orthonormal-upvoters?

This is just an attack on orthonormal, whose comment was not particularly objectionable in any way except inasmuch as it attempted to correct you. Am I next?

It was most certainly not an attack on orthonormal (who in general is a fine contributor by my lights); in fact it was expressed in a somewhat lighthearted tone, as indicated by the archaism "ye". Orthonormal's comment may not have been "objectionable", but, good golly, how was it worth 5 (now 6) upvotes? Especially when, if you stop to reflect, it couldn't possibly have communicated anything that I hadn't considered: of course the teacher means he/she will treat it as if the student turned in nothing! (And that means giving it a grade of 0.) Could anybody have reasonably expected that I would have read that comment and said "Oh, hadn't thought of that, thank you for pointing it out"? My contention was that "I won't grade it" wasn't a reasonable shorthand; consequently the comment amounted to a mere denial, and not even an attempted refutation.

Now, speaking of niceness, I have to say that I think you were uncharitable to me in the parent comment. For example:

I would be only a little more surprised if you had chosen to rant about someone expressing an intention to turn on their lawn sprinkler, saying that this is objectionably oblique because what really matters is that the grass will get wet, not that it be delivered by a particular device.

The difference between that sort of silly thing and my actual complaint is nothing short of stark. I'm talking about a teacher saying that he or she will not award a score as a sort of euphemism for awarding a particular low score (such as 0). Do you see how that's a more reasonable complaint than your example, even if you don't think it rises to the level of being reasonable in absolute terms?

Anyway, I hope this helps to clarify things, and I hope I didn't seem non-nice in this comment.