Democratic President Joe Biden is making waves with his latest campaign move, embracing the "Dark Brandon" meme spawned from a meme popular among conservatives.
The term "Dark Brandon" originated as a play on the conservative phrase "Let's go Brandon," which arose after a newscaster mistakenly claimed a crowd at a NASCAR race was chanting "Let's go Brandon" when they were actually chanting "F**k Joe Biden."
While the meme initially served as a way for conservatives to criticize Biden, it has since been appropriated by his supporters.
Now the President himself is embracing it.
Biden's 2024 presidential campaign is selling Dark Brandon T-shirts and coffee mugs featuring a popular version of the meme, with Biden depicted as having glowing red eyes. The shirts are priced from $32 for a small to $35 for a 3XL and are said to be "best worn while vanquishing malarkey," a nod to Biden's "no malarkey" slogan from the 2020 campaign.
The "Dark Roast" mugs are $22.
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The Dark Brandon image also appears on a 404 error—page not found—response on the campaign website.
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The launch of the Dark Brandon T-shirts was timed to coincide with Biden's announcement of his 2024 campaign.
Biden's campaign video is included below.
The initial response has been positive.
All in all, it's clear the Dark Brandon meme is here to stay, at least for the time being.
Whether it will ultimately help or hurt Biden's campaign remains to be seen, but one thing is certain—the power of online communities to shape political discourse is only going to grow in the years to come. Politicians will need to find new ways to engage with these communities if they hope to succeed.
President Biden has given every indication he is, despite conservatives' claims, fully aware of the meaning behind "Let's go Brandon!".
In fact, it's safe to say the President appears to have a sense of humor about it, as when he met with a man named Brandon to drum up support for his administration's "Build Back Better" intiative.
Although neither the President nor his social media and PR team confirmed Biden was slyly putting divisive rhetoric to sleep, he received praise from social media users for subverting the joke.
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