Donkey and elephant election symbols of Democrat and Republican party
– Photo: Amar Ujala
Expansion
The donkey and elephant have their own interesting history in the US presidential election. It is about 1828. Democratic Party presidential candidate Andrew Jackson was campaigning. At the same time, his opponents started calling him ‘Jackass’ (a stubborn donkey). Jackson accepted this label and began promoting the donkey as a symbol of his strong will. After this, the party continued to experiment as they saw fit, but it became a permanent party symbol in the 1870s, when cartoonist Thomas Nast featured a donkey in his cartoons to express stubborn opposition to Republican policies.
Talking about the Republican ‘elephant’, the credit for it also goes to cartoonist Thomas Nast. In fact, Thomas Nast was among those who used creativity with truth and against wrong. In such a situation, he used to raise his voice against the wrong policies of both the parties through his cartoons. When some American publications openly supported the Democratic Party and spread a rumor that President Ulysses Grant was planning to run for a third term in 1976, he drew a cartoon of an elephant in 1874 writing ‘Vote Republican’. In this, the elephant was shown scared by a donkey dressed as a lion.
The strong base and strength of Republican voters in the American elections was depicted through cartoons. Republicans then began to display the elephant as a silent, but powerful political force, and it became a permanent symbol of the party. The journey that started with cartoons has now reached animation, jokes and memes. – Neha Rawat from Pauri Garhwal