Red vs. Blue, How did we end up with this mess?

I am a child of the Cold War. I learned the duck and cover in first grade. The Soviet Union didn't fall until after I graduated college. All my life I learned to associate Red with Communism. Growing up in a Demoncrap household, the association of blue with demoncraps seemed natural until I grew up and realized what a political wasteland The Dems lived in. Now that I have grown up politically, I question how in hell Republicans managed to allow themselves to be associated with the color of Communism? If you were to plot political theory on a number line with Extreme Libertarianism/Anarchy on the extreme right, Totalitarianism/Communism on the extreme left, you'd find that Democrats are much closer to the left hand side than Republicans. Now if you made that number line a "rainbow" between scarlet on the left and indigo on the right, you'd find that democrats are in the range of blood red to fuchia and republicans between maroon and navy blue. So why are Dems identified as Blue and Republicans Red? Is this yet another subtle propaganda tool of the media to undermine Conservatives?