Cover the windows, batten down the hatches, and brace yourself, because Joe Biden said at a rally in Philadelphia on Sunday that there will be a sequel to “Dark Brandon.” As you may recall, the Dark Brandon meme started surfacing online early in the Biden administration, and Team Joe tried to apply it to their advantage to tout the president’s accomplishments.
Do you remember this nonsense?
Dark Brandon is awesome pic.twitter.com/w0L8xCzIW8
– Andrew Bates (@AndrewJBates46) 7 August 2022
Well, unfortunately for all of us, Biden apparently thought it was so effective that it needed to be revived:
“Dark Brandon is coming back,” he joked to a supporter in Harrisburg who asked him about the meme that developed into a unifying force to allay concerns about Biden’s age at the start of his campaign. [Yeah, not so much.]
While he increasing calls from members Congress to leave the campaign after a feeble debate performance last month, Biden said he had not seen the same reaction from voters.
“We’re drawing huge crowds. Since the debate, no joke, even the night after, we had huge crowds,” Biden said.
Voters: We need Dark Brandon back
President Biden: Dark Brandon is coming back
Voters: *break out into applause* pic.twitter.com/fBPL01ReeK
— Biden-Harris Headquarters (@BidenHQ) July 7, 2024
Biden’s trip to Philadelphia went about as well as expected:
Biden shows a frightening look when visiting a black church, and the bishop’s statement raises eyebrows
The comeback begins as a confused, bewildered Joe Biden wanders through Pennsylvania
Does Biden know that the “Brandon” part of the meme comes from the famed “Let’s Go Brandon” hilarity in which the crowd at a 2021 NASCAR race chant a profane anti-Biden sentimentand the announcer pretended (or perhaps sounded imitation) that they were cheering for the winner of the event, Brandon Brown? “Let’s Go Brandon” became a conservative slogan that sums up the feelings of many Republicans to this day. (For example, I am the proud owner of a “Let’s Go Brandon” t-shirt.)
The “dark” part of the name also has some not so flattering origins:
On November 14, 2020 – just one week after Biden won the 2020 election — Chinese illustrator Yang Quan uploaded several pictures to Weibo The 46th President is portrayed as evil, enthroned above zombie-like creatures on a throne that appears to be made of assault weapons, so PoliticoThe first image in the set is the same illustration that Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, 49, later Post on Twitternow called X.
“The sleeping king ascends the throne, the devil has risen again,” reads the Chinese caption under one of the images, according to Politico.
Sounds right.
However, some attribute the apply of the word “dark” to a meme by Donald Trump:
Meanwhile, Dark Brandon also owes part of his name to “Dark MAGA,” a hashtag and group of memes that “depict a ‘punished,’ crazier version of Donald Trump, who is running for re-election in 2024 and has abandoned all optics and replaced his MAGA slogan with ‘Dark MAGA,'” the online meme encyclopedia says. Know your meme.
Whatever the origin of this embarrassing meme, breathing modern life into it would further demonstrate the desperation of the Biden team in trying to save their crumbling campaign. The reason it’s so stupid, in my opinion, is that it inadvertently highlights the contrast between the forceful (if evil) looking guy with lasers in his eyes and the black-eyed, expressionless commander in chief we’ve seen on the debate stage (and elsewhere).
Dark Brandon? pic.twitter.com/lE0bfw9Jq4
— The Hawkington Post (@Paulhawkington) July 7, 2024
They haven’t offered me a position on the campaign team yet, but if I were hired, I would tell them to put this ridiculous meme and everything that comes with it on ice and pretend it never happened.
