There are two harmless representatives of the animal kingdom that, without any liability for them, were adopted as symbols of the two main political parties in the United States -- elephants and donkeys for the Republican and Democrat parties, respectively. Two sides of the same coin.
Rumor has it that both figures were created by the same cartoonist, Thomas Nast, who circulated his idea between 1862 and 1885 in the newspaper Harper’s Weekly as a way of sharp criticism towards politicians.
The objective of recalling this story now is because we witness how President Donald Trump appears nervous and uneasy. A mood that goes from scared to angry, and shows the classic subtlety of an elephant in a china shop.
A few hours ago, he posted a message os social networks, where he calls “cracy” congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, an inappropriate behavior for the head of the White House.
But in the same text, he said that his adviser on COVID-19, Dr. Deborah Birx, is "pathetic" because she recognized that the disease is uncontrollably spreading in the countryside and urban areas.
Actually, Dr. Birx was only accepting something that almost the entire world knows, except perhaps the president and his closest followers: the health crisis in the United States is totally out of control.
While writing this commentary, statistics indicate that 4,719,000 U.S. citizens contracted the virus and of them 155 500 died, the highest numbers worldwide.
However, still more alarming is that there is no sign that these figures are decreasing. On the contrary, as Dr. Birx explained, the disease is extremely widespread.
According to America's foremost virologist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who also lost Trump's appreciation for telling the truth, it’s vital to contain the infections before reaching the flu season in the fall, otherwise everything could get much more complicated.
Unfortunately, the president has set his eyes on the presidential elections next November 3rd, and doesn't accept anything that might distract his attention.
In a Thomas Nast cartoon from 1873, a donkey is seen disguised as a lion scaring the other animals, and an undecided and stunned elephant, named "Republican vote," about to fall into the abyss. Almost 150 years later, that image is still quite accurate.
