A Quick Video Primer Explaining How Republicans and Democrats Got Their Symbolic Animals

In the spirit of the upcoming Presidential election, National Geographic has created a short video primer that explains why Republicans are represented by elephants and Democrats by donkeys.

The Republican elephant was popularized in the political cartoons of Thomas Nast …The Democrat donkey was introduced decades before to insult Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Jackson. Jackson found it funny and embraced it.

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.