Donkeys and Elephants

Open audition: new political party mascots

One of the many absurd sidebar stories in American politics is how the donkey and elephant became the mascots of our two political parties.  The story is uninspiring and you can Google it for more details.  Political mascots

Like Aesop, these stories try to convince us that animals are people with fur or feathers. Thus, a donkey is a humble beast of burden, therefore an animal of the common man, therefore a Democrat. The elephant is a strong, careful guardian of his family, therefore a Republican.

We manipulate animals as our doppelgangers in countless ways.  This is a tradition I have no desire to upset; my suggestion is that we need to rethink what's in the menagerie.

Allegedly intelligent and long-lived as donkeys are, they fail the optics test for reasons most will understand. My cousin Johnny kept a pet donkey, a mere stone's throw away from the house I grew up in. They are smelly and belligerent animals. For elephants I have nothing but the greatest respect. How could you not admire an animal with ears that are five feet long? And that legendary memory of theirs that gets them back every year to the same watering hole; plus their helicopter-level parental care for their kids.

I'm for starting afresh, with new political mascots. The word mascot has a long history in many European languages, all of which suggest the word is meant to bring good luck, by magical or other means. And we can all agree our political parties could use some of that.

My hope is that we do a better job than renaming the Washington Redskins the Commanders. Granted, that's a low bar. We do know that there are roughly one billion sheep in the world today, but I’m not sure that’s much help. As to the number of animal species, there is less certainty, but on the low end at least one million. For the definition of an animal, the Cambridge English Dictionary asserts: "a living thing that can move and eat and react to the world through its senses, especially of sight and hearing. Mammals, insects, reptiles and birds are all animals.”

Snakes, other reptiles, spiders, and various other bugs are all out of the running here. As are dogs or cats, for we'll never be able to reach consensus as to which ones to choose---there being too many favorites. If you're in doubt about this, next time you're out for a walk, ask your neighbor to tell you about his dog.  Fish are a prom-ising but neglected pool of candidates, but they too will fail the optics test. 

If we are going to do this with some seriousness, attention must be on birds. In his famous, apocalyptic poem, "The Second Coming," Yeats writes of "indignant desert birds." It's a brilliant, haunting image, these birds Yeats has circling around "a shape with lion body and the head of a man." Desert birds may be indignant: I certainly would be in their circumstances, but the common species found in deserts such as wrens and roadrunners won't do as our political mascots. Also out for obvious reasons are eagles, already serving a higher national purpose. And our pro sports teams have taken the blue jays, orioles, ravens, pelicans, falcons, hawks, ducks and penguins.

What we're looking for are two birds whose behavior and habits would align with the leading characteristics of our two political parties.  For today's Democrats, we need a bird that is: aggressive, self-righteous and narcissistic. And for the Republican mas-cot, we're searching for the same characteristics; perhaps, a bit fatter, less agile in the air, and thus an easier target for skeet shooters.

I was thinking about crows, but they're too intelligent and actually know how to solve problems.  The rook, a crow relative, is a leading mascot option, as they have an irritating screech and have proven able to adjust to hostile (read human) environ-ments. The problem with rooks is there aren't any of them in North America now, as they tend to fly between Ireland and Siberia.  With climate change, let's assume some of them will decide to migrate west to our shores. Bird Number Two: the magpie. Though these birds are of above-average intelligence, they are also serious noise makers, chattering, whistling and mimicing the sounds of others around them. Irritating sound makers who can adjust to many environments? Line items on the CVs of all our politicians, no? Your choice: which party gets which bird.