The Democratic Donkey and the Republican Elephant

     Every four years Americans are called to the polls to vote and elect a President of the USA under the curious and/or inquisitive look of the rest of the world. As a consequence, every four years people out of the United States start asking the same questions: What is the Electoral College? Why are they saying in the news a candidate with more votes may lose the election? What´s the difference between Democrats and Republicans? And Why do they use elephants and donkeys as party symbols?
Today I will address the last of these questions (one step at a time!). I highly recommend to those of you who are interested in learning about the Electoral College this video.

     We owe the famous donkey and elephant party symbols almost entirely to a single person, caricaturist Thomas Nast, considered the father of the American cartoon. I say almost because, contrary to popular belief, Nast did not invent the Democratic donkey, he simply made it famous (but he did come up with the elephant!).

     Everything started during the 1828 presidential campaign which, according to many historians, marked the beginning of modern politics. The  two presidential candidates, Democrat Andrew Jackson and Republican John Quincy Adams, used for the first time a political tactic that quickly became common practice: mudslinging. Mudslinging consists of making negative statements about the opponent, trying to discredit him. One example of mudslinging is John Quincy Adams´ referring to Andrew Jackson as a jackass (a donkey), which the democratic candidate decided to use to his advantage. He printed the donkey on his campaign posters as a symbol of a strong will. Many years later Thomas Nast began to use the donkey on his cartoons to represent the Democratic party, which ended up adopting the symbol.

    Almost half a century after the Jackson - Adams campaign, in 1874, Nast published yet another of his brilliant cartoons on Harper´s Weekly. The cartoon (see image) presented a Democratic donkey disguised as a lion scaring away all other animals in the zoo. Among the animals there is an elephant labeled "the Republican vote." The cartoon (as most other cartoons Nast published) became incredibly popular throughout the country, and the Republican party quickly adopted the elephant as their symbol.

     Nowadays both political parties continue proudly displaying their animal symbols. Democrats claim the donkey is smart and brave, whereas Republicans regard their elephant as strong and dignified. Who would have thought a simple name-calling would result in such internationally recognized symbols?