As the political season finally fades, it’s time for me to say – as an Independent – that both political parties are arrogant and stupid.

Here’s the proof. After Andrew Jackson defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, his fame led him to the Presidency in 1828. As a tough guy from frontier Tennessee, he terrified the establishment in Washington. His supporters admiringly called him “Old Hickory,” but his rivals thought he was a mindless bully, and openly referred to him as “The Jackass.” Jackson didn’t flinch, he embraced the imagery; in his two terms in office, Jackson developed a reputation for stubbornness and belligerence unparalleled in American history.

In 1870, Thomas Nast, the famed political cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly, took it a bit further, and pretty much put the label on all Democrats, when he drew an image of a donkey kicking a lion to represent the Democratic Party’s attempt to break Republicans’ hold on government. The reference to Jackson was unmistakable, and the ornery attitude was spot-on. And for some reason the Democrats looked past the blistering criticism and adopted the imagery as their own.

Meanwhile, a second war hero, Ulysses S. Grant, was elected President as a result of his success in the Civil War. His Republican supporters thought his tough determination was the perfect thing for rebuilding the South and developing the West. But his Democratic detractors thought he was a reckless drunk who doled out favors to corrupt robber barons.

In that spirit, in 1874, Thomas Nast struck again. In a second cartoon depicting a struggle between the two parties, Nast ditched the Republican lion and instead used an elephant to represent Grant’s bloated administration, at war with the democratic donkey. Though it was a brutal indictment, there was something about that pachyderm than struck a nerve, and the Republicans embraced the elephant.

And so – as Maya Angelou’s saying goes – when someone shows you who they are, believe them. Democrats are tough donkeys: notoriously stupid and stubborn. Republicans are, as Adlai Stevenson observed, “an elephant with thick skin and a head full of ivory…proceeding best by grasping the tail of its predecessor.”

There is one notable difference between the parties, however. The GOP has officially adopted their mascot – his name is Max (of course) and his wife is Maxine (naturally). The Democrats – the multidimensional, conflicted party – haven’t made any formal position on their beloved animal.

Thus, one can conclude that, if you are a Republican, you are proud to say you are a supporter of bloated generational corruption. And if you are a Democrat, you are pretty sure you are a jackass, but you lack the courage to admit it.

I am speaking only symbolically, of course…