How the donkey and elephant came to represent Democrats and Republicans in US politics

Incidentally, Nast is also known for shaping an even more wildly popular image — that of the bearded, red-clad Santa Claus.

The elephant and the donkey were meant to be satirical

In an 1870 cartoon for the magazine Harper’s Weekly, Nast showed a donkey kicking a dead lion. The donkey represented a section of Democrats he disliked, while the lion stood for Lincoln’s recently deceased Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, whom the Democrats had criticised. It was titled, “A live jackass kicking a dead lion!” Therefore, the choice of a donkey was intentional, in service of a pun used to indicate his low opinion of the Democrats.

Nast’s cartoon of Democratic donkey, from “Harper’s Weekly” in 1870. (Wikimedia Commons)

Though the party had earlier invoked the donkey before Nast, it was not entirely by choice. The magazine noted, “In 1828, when [Democrat] Andrew Jackson was running for president, his opponents were fond of referring to him as a jackass… Emboldened by his detractors, Jackson embraced the image as the symbol of his campaign, rebranding the donkey as steadfast, determined, and willful, instead of wrong-headed, slow, and obstinate.” Nast, however, is credited for popularising the donkey much later.

Similarly, the elephant often made it to his cartoons as a massive and formidable creature representing the Republicans, certainly a kinder representation than the Democrats’ symbol. However, it was not beyond criticism.

A 2018 CNN report found this to be the case in the cartoon “Third Term Panic” from 1874. It said the cartoon was a response to The New York Herald, which backed some Democrats before the elections and “spread the rumor that President Ulysses Grant, a Republican, was contemplating running for a third term in 1876”. While a third-term election was not illegal then, it created some fears about a possible overreach from Grant.

“The Third-Term Panic”, by Thomas Nast, originally published in Harper’s Magazine in 1874. (Via Wikimedia Commons)

“Nast, a proud supporter of the Party of Lincoln, drew the Herald as a donkey wrapped in a lion’s skin, frightening the other animals with wild stories of a Grant dictatorship. Among these animals are an enormous, oafish elephant labeled “the Republican Vote,” which looks as though it’s about to tumble off a cliff,” the CNN report said.

“Like the best satirists, he ridiculed his own side almost as gleefully as he did his opponents’ – and so, he reimagined the GOP (Grand Old Party or Republican Party) as a weak, panicky creature that was constantly lumbering off in the wrong direction, its size more of a liability than an asset,” it added.

Official adoption

John Grinspan, Curator at the Smithsonian American History Museum, told the Associated Press these representations became popular in a period when allegiance to political parties was strong amid the electorate. The animals were shown as fierce and engaging in action.

Lisa Kathleen Graddy, another curator, said that over time the “edge” accorded to the animals softened with easing political divides: “They become much more just physically rounded they have softer rounded edges. They don’t rampage as much, they might rear up or kick or raise their trunk but they’re not violent animals anymore.” As polarization is yet again witnessed in US politics, these depictions could change once more.