Fox News has been very busy trying to paint President Joe Biden as a mentally decomposing incompetent who’s simultaneously at the vanguard of a shrewd and dastardly plot to address rural poverty and provide Americans with affordable health care, so they don’t appreciate attempts to reclaim the right’s offensive “Let’s Go, Brandon” mantra. And they’ve trotted out the Algonquin kids’ table to address this outrage.
The same network that once employed Mike Huckabee and currently airs a show starring Greg Gutfeld—two dudes who are to comedy what the fraught, wild-eyed shrieks of snow-white spring lambs brutally led to the slaughter are to comedy—are here to tell you what’s funny and what isn’t.
Their conclusion? The Dark Brandon meme isn’t funny, so stop sniggering, soy boy.
On Fox’s panel discussion show “Outnumbered,” which features the four Republican women in Manhattan who were somehow not sexually harassed by Bill O’Reilly, it became abundantly clear just how intimidated conservatives are by Biden, whose prospects for reelection are brightening with every positive economic report.
Oh, and that other guy was just indicted for the third time so, you know, they have to say something.
On Thursday, Biden released a short video in which he sipped from a “Dark Brandon” mug and cheekily intoned, “I like my coffee dark.” Our president is tweaking his opponents with a playful little flourish, while embracing a viral meme that slyly juxtaposes his laid-back avuncular nature with his burgeoning reputation for getting shit done.
It’s fun, right? Yet you’d think he’d stolen top secret government documents after hatching a scheme to disenfranchise 81 million voters and end American democracy or something. Because Fox’s talking meatheads were outraged. Outraged, I tells ya!
Watch:
(Partial) Transcript!
RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY: “This mug is like about trying to present him as tough and badass when we know he probably wears diapers and he falls off of his bike. So it’s not working, and it’s a problem. … Obviously, this is a man who, his economy is in trouble. He is censoring all of his, anyone who contradicts him and his narrative, online. He’s imprisoning, trying to imprison, his own opponent. This is a sign of weakness, and you’re right. Who is going to step up? Will it be Gavin Newsom, or will we get a surprise in Michelle Obama?”
Or maybe Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will win the nomination! Or Marianne Williamson! Her plan for providing health care to every citizen by erecting an 800-foot-tall healing crystal in the middle of Kansas is just … *chef’s kiss*. Or maybe Jimmy Carter will run. He’s still eligible for one more term! Anyone but this guy whose economy The Washington Post editorial board just described as being ”in the midst of something wonderful.”
Also, let’s be clear. Biden isn’t trying to imprison Trump. He respects the White House’s traditional hands-off approach to the Department of Justice. On the other hand, corruptly using the DOJ to pursue his political opponents is something Trump definitely wanted to do. The incessant “lock her up” chants were kind of a tell.
Back to the meltdown!
KAYLEIGH MCENANY: “Well, we know he wears that CPAP mask, we don’t know much else, but we’ve seen the strap. But I will say this. … This week, for a campaign that has huge warning signs. Cracks. You look at the numbers among the base. You look at the numbers with Black voters, with young voters, with Hispanic voters. There are visible warning signs. But Julie, what is he doing? He’s on a beach, he’s on a bike, he’s on a 10-day vacation in Delaware. This is what he’s doing. If I’m a Democrat [sic] Party member, I’m saying, let’s bring in Gavin Newsom, because this guy doesn’t seem to care.”
Sure, Gavin Newsom. Sleep apnea wouldn’t dare afflict Gavin Newsom! No CPAP masks for him. Or how about Michael Dukakis? (He’s still alive, I checked!) Now that we know our previous president has been showing stolen top secret battle plans to randos, perhaps the American people might finally forgive Mike for that tank helmet. But above all, we need Donald Trump back in the White House, because he never goes on vacation!
But besides craving Gavin Newsom, what else do the “Outnumbered” cast assume Democrats might think of this cheeky little ad?
JULIE BANDERAS: “If I’m a Democratic Party member, I’m embarrassed because he’s actually doing his Democratic Party a disservice. Dark Brandon is not funny. I mean, that’s actually a really dark joke. … I don’t think it’s funny. And ‘Brandon’ is not a compliment. If that’s all he’s got to go on is take the worst insult that he’s adopted through his presidency and make something of it? And while the red beaming eyes … would be very cool, I also think it’s really uncool, the fact that all of this news about Hunter Biden this week, and Joe Biden, was buried by the mainstream media because of the indictment. You know what, our main focus should be our president, and the dark days of summer. That’s what his mug should say.”
The worst insult of his presidency? It’s not even the worst insult from the last three minutes of that show. Didn’t Campos-Duffy just say he wears diapers?
And, wait, there was no news this week about Hunter Biden, other than the revelation that the president had absolutely no involvement in his son’s business schemes. Is that why the mainstream media focused on a former U.S. president’s third criminal indictment instead? So weird. And so, so unfair to … Democrats.
Of course, the Dark Brandon meme is not only not “dark,” it’s barrels of fun and highly effective. And it deftly turns the right’s narrative about Biden—i.e., he’s a namby-pamby milquetoast octogenarian who’s somehow orchestrating a Machievellian transformation of America—on its head. And it ultimately turns the right’s “Let’s Go, Brandon” meme—itself born of vulgarity and a journalistic gaffe—into an embarrassing own goal.
[T]he Dark Brandon meme’s popularity among Biden supporters was so swift and decisive that it has effectively become a positive affirmation, not only of Biden himself, but of the internet’s ability to reclaim and salvage what once was lost.
In the year or so since Democrats — including numerous politicians and White House staff members — started using it, the “Brandon” meme, which began as an ironic take on an already-ironic meme from the right, has become a triumphant anthem for the Biden campaign.
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And at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 29, Biden briefly donned sunglasses and referenced the persona, to cheers from the audience.
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