Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm editor keen to S. Gibson, joined today as always
Speaker 1: by Josh Clark. Yes you are, Josh. I'm gonna turn
Speaker 1: the tables on you a little bit. I know that
Speaker 1: you usually like to ask me questions, but I have
Speaker 1: one for you. Okay, what happened to Mordecai. Mordecai the Donkey,
Speaker 1: Mode the Donkey. You know, I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Morrikai the Donkey, the the official first official live mascot
Speaker 1: at the d n C, the Democratic National Convention. He
Speaker 1: was debuted in January, right and then dropped off the
Speaker 1: face of the planet. Ultimately. To answer your question, I
Speaker 1: have no idea what happened to Mordecai. He may have
Speaker 1: had an accident in the Grand Canyon that was covered
Speaker 1: up by you know, uh, Democratic spinsters. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping Mordecai is okay, but I have not seen,
Speaker 1: nor heard hide nor hair from him. If any of
Speaker 1: you listening know what happened to Mordecai, I'm dying to
Speaker 1: know if that little ass made it the Mile High City.
Speaker 1: So especially Barack Obama. If you have time, if you
Speaker 1: could just give me a call, that'd be fabulous. UM
Speaker 1: and other news there. As far as I know, was
Speaker 1: never an elephant slated to appear at the Republican National
Speaker 1: I hadn't. I hadn't heard anything about that. It was
Speaker 1: all Mordecai and maybe maybe that's what it was. Maybe
Speaker 1: you know, Mordecai was going to steal the spotlight and
Speaker 1: the powers that be saday. Hey, if if the GOP
Speaker 1: isn't going to have an elephant, you guys can't have
Speaker 1: Mordecai there. Well, it's equal media coverage. It's actually a
Speaker 1: law handed down with the FCC. Is that right, Yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there there's a loophole here there, but yeah, they they
Speaker 1: they have to have equal media coverage four candidates. I
Speaker 1: don't know that Um. Other mammals are are involved in
Speaker 1: that at all, if they're if the SEC extended it
Speaker 1: that far, but it could be a safe bet. I
Speaker 1: would say, well, even without the mammals, those things were
Speaker 1: zoos enough. There was a lot going on flying around.
Speaker 1: So you've been paying attention to the to the conventions
Speaker 1: I have, I certainly have the big question, Sarah Palin,
Speaker 1: hair up, hair down? Who knows? Yeah, you never, You
Speaker 1: never can't tell with her? Ken you no? But um,
Speaker 1: did you find a little odd that that there was
Speaker 1: going to be a donkey at the convention? Well, I'm
Speaker 1: a petting zooficionado, So at any opportunity a live mammal
Speaker 1: appears that I can scratch under its chin, that's fine
Speaker 1: with me. But yeah, I get what you're saying. I mean,
Speaker 1: these things aren't exactly austere ceremonies, but they are pretty serious.
Speaker 1: It's a time for a business and so you have
Speaker 1: to wonder why a donkey? Why would you lead a
Speaker 1: bringing jackass into a national party conventions? We're talking about
Speaker 1: mammals at the conventions. Oh wait, yes, so was I right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. Now, Well you know, I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: the donkeys not even the official um mascot of the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. Did you know that? I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: But did you know that the GOP actually did at
Speaker 1: one point adopt the elephant as its official mascot? True story? Okay,
Speaker 1: so um, I had heard actually at one point in
Speaker 1: time that neither party created this this symbol. They were
Speaker 1: just kind of there and associated with it, and it
Speaker 1: all came down to one journalist and editorial cartoonist named
Speaker 1: Thomas Nast. Is that factor of fiction, that's it's it's faction,
Speaker 1: sort of fact, it's sort of fiction. Thomas Nast. He
Speaker 1: was German born. He moved to New York City when
Speaker 1: he was six, and New York City has always been
Speaker 1: a real center for political and cultural and social hubbub.
Speaker 1: And so from a very young age who was infused
Speaker 1: and positively you know, swept up and all these ideals.
Speaker 1: And he showed artistic talent at a very young age,
Speaker 1: and it's sort of awesome into it a great political
Speaker 1: cartoonists career. And he certainly adopted the donkey for the Democrats,
Speaker 1: but he can't take credit for first as signing that animal,
Speaker 1: not with the donkey. Back in eight thirty seven, there
Speaker 1: was another political cartoon. I'm not sure who drew it,
Speaker 1: but this one depicted President Andrew Jackson, former President Andrew
Speaker 1: Jackson really still trying to sway no dead president, yeah, superformer,
Speaker 1: super superformer, still trying to influence the Democrats, even though
Speaker 1: he had already left the White House. And so the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party was portrayed as a donkey and he was
Speaker 1: sort of pulling on it. And the donkey is a
Speaker 1: stereotypically stubborn animal, and so that showed the dichotomy there
Speaker 1: between the lack of influence and the unwillingness to be
Speaker 1: influenced and sort of stuck net pick that up and
Speaker 1: started using it. Well, he ran with it to a
Speaker 1: certain extent. He used the donkey to portray Democratic journalists
Speaker 1: and specifically copper Heads. Oh yeah, the anti anti war,
Speaker 1: anti union and I think, in Nest's opinion, racist Northerners,
Speaker 1: right right right. He was not fond of them at all,
Speaker 1: and so a donkey seemed the perfect animal to show,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of stubbornly and relentlessly clinging to very
Speaker 1: dead ideals. And one of the cartoons that he drew
Speaker 1: that featured this um copperhead representation was right after Edwin
Speaker 1: Stanton had died, and that was Lincoln's secretary of War
Speaker 1: during the Civil War, and it showed the donkey started
Speaker 1: kicking his corpse, and it wasn't Edwin Stands corpse, it
Speaker 1: was a lion that essentially embodied him. But he used
Speaker 1: the donkey to sort of turned the party on its
Speaker 1: head and make statements about the press and and really
Speaker 1: put the press in a bad light. And another of
Speaker 1: his cartoons, it showed the donkey clad in a lion's
Speaker 1: costume trying to scare off all the other animals around.
Speaker 1: And um, this was back when Ulysses says, Grant was
Speaker 1: up for his third term reelection, right right, So the
Speaker 1: donkey in that case represented a It was the press again,
Speaker 1: wasn't it. It was stirring up the other animals in
Speaker 1: the forest. But there was an elephant in that cartoon, yea.
Speaker 1: And now that one of the animals in the cartoon
Speaker 1: was the Republican elephants. And we're not really sure what
Speaker 1: the elephant is supposed to symbolize as far as the
Speaker 1: Republican Party goes. I mean, there's certainly generalizations that we
Speaker 1: make about elephants. Um, do they really scare easily? Did
Speaker 1: they never forget? Um? They have fabulous trunks. Well. And
Speaker 1: one of the things I noticed from nas cartoons is
Speaker 1: that it's almost like he assigns, uh the attribute he's
Speaker 1: looking forward to that either the donkey or the elephant,
Speaker 1: based on you know, his his feeling or what he's
Speaker 1: trying to convey at that moment. There there doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be any particular part of either of those animals
Speaker 1: that he felt embodied the each party, which I mean
Speaker 1: really probably by now would have switched anyway, right, because didn't.
Speaker 1: Weren't Republicans formerly social liberals in nast time. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: absolutely correct, and now there are social conservatives, yes, generally right. Um.
Speaker 1: And one of the more famous instances of the elephant
Speaker 1: being used, it's sort of clumsy and it's it's stumbling,
Speaker 1: it's about to fall into a pit that's labeled I think, Um,
Speaker 1: oh gosh, what is it labeled? Like inflation and chaos
Speaker 1: and you know, instant death that kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. So he did use them to
Speaker 1: his man his advantage. And what's interesting about Nash is
Speaker 1: that even though he was a journalist he worked at
Speaker 1: Harper's Weekly twenty four years I think that was eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty two to eighty six, he was not unbiased. You know,
Speaker 1: today we would like to think that most journalists are unbiased,
Speaker 1: but definitely, um, he was not. He made his opinions
Speaker 1: very well known, and apparently the other members of the
Speaker 1: press that as well, like the the copper Head Democrat Press,
Speaker 1: they I think back in those days, everybody kind of
Speaker 1: had their own voice, their own outlet, you know, And
Speaker 1: you're starting to see a similar division today, don't you agree,
Speaker 1: Where you know, the right has its own news outlets
Speaker 1: and the left has its own as well. I think
Speaker 1: that's perfectly natural. I mean, people want to read things
Speaker 1: that ali'm with their own points of view. And what's
Speaker 1: interesting about NaSTA is that he really did levy these
Speaker 1: cartoons to work for his advantage. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'd go so far as to say that his
Speaker 1: cartoons were propaganda. I think they were making definitive political statements,
Speaker 1: but I don't know that he was trying to corral
Speaker 1: people into his corner like a piece of propaganda would,
Speaker 1: even though he did create the character of Uncle Sam
Speaker 1: that we know very well, and that did grace the
Speaker 1: image at least grace the front of a very famous
Speaker 1: piece of propaganda that I want you poster. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: and also when you look at Nests cartoons, you get
Speaker 1: the impression that there's almost like a certain amount of
Speaker 1: fury or rage or anger or discussed in them. So
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of the opposite of propaganda. It's
Speaker 1: more like, you know, pointing out the stupidity of believing
Speaker 1: the you know, believing that the opposite of what Nas believed.
Speaker 1: You know, you kind of get that impression as well
Speaker 1: from the cartoons. I do, I do. I see a
Speaker 1: lot of that latent in them, and I can picture
Speaker 1: him at his desk, you know, sleeves rolled up and
Speaker 1: furiously working on one of these drawings. And they did
Speaker 1: serve a purpose. He actually created a bunch of characters
Speaker 1: of Boss Tweed and actually brought down that crime ring.
Speaker 1: Not solely by himself, but his art definitely helped indict
Speaker 1: Boss Tweed. Yeah, and it is I think Lincoln and
Speaker 1: Grant both credited Nast his cartoons with helping them get elected.
Speaker 1: So clearly he was having a pretty big, pretty big
Speaker 1: impression on people. He was. He even impressed Mark Twain,
Speaker 1: a very famous cynic, who commented on his his artwork. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks for clearing that up. So it was faction, you said, faction.
Speaker 1: That's a new one on me. I like it. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, and um stick around to learn about which
Speaker 1: famous symbol graces the walls of Josh's cubicle, and that
Speaker 1: would be magnum p I, symbol of all of his brawny,
Speaker 1: manly and right with the world. He's the symbol of
Speaker 1: my party, the beach bumb Party. Yeah, it is true,
Speaker 1: So thanks for telling everybody that. You can read even
Speaker 1: more about these political symbols and why are a donkey
Speaker 1: and an elephant the symbols of the Democratic and Republican
Speaker 1: parties on how stuff works dot com. For more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works
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