Because our political parties have a tradition of using animal mascots. Elephants for republicans, donkeys for democrats, and porcupines for the (very insubstantial) libertarian party. No idea where the fuck it came from, but it’s a useful shorthand in political cartoons. The statue of liberty is likewise often used to represent the concept of liberty itself, the USA as a whole, or the spirit of governance. As to why the donkey is threatening the statue of liberty, it’s because some right wing nut job is projecting what the republicans are currently right now trying to do (and have been trying to do since Trump lost) onto the democrats; and that’s to destroy liberty and our spirit of governance in order to retain power.
Thanks for the explanation and that’s a little funny. Most places that choose animal mascots usually go with dragons, lions, bears and wolves around here. Never seen anyone choose a donkey. Elephant and porcupine are not as silly but still, you got like the whole animal kingdom along with imaginary and extinct animals to work with and that’s your choice.
Oh right, American libertarianism is the weird one that once corporate government or something. I nearly forgot that’s a thing, around here libertarian is a socialist with anarchist leanings.
Yeah, there ARE left libertarians (of course I know him, he’s me), but it’s largely right-lib, and a non-trivial number of those are embarrassed republicans.
Basically the idea is socialism would be implemented by smaller, local organizations with either no government or as limited a government as practically possible, depending on the exact strain of thought.
There are actually many different schools of socialist thought. Most people have only heard of a few because of US and Soviet propaganda. In fact many libertarian socialists consider countries like the USSR and China to be “state capitalist” countries that are only pretending to be socialist for propaganda purposes. Similar to how the US markets itself as a paradise for ordinary people while also subjecting them to various forms of oppression and poverty.
They were originally intended to be derogatory caricatures but they stuck and became semi-official symbols over time. So they were not chosen to make the parties look good.
some right wing nut job is projecting what the republicans are currently right now trying to do (and have been trying to do since Trump lost) onto the democrats
It's bizarre. The donkey's hair even resembles Trump's.
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