CNN political analyst Joe Lockhart claimed that people who say “Let’s go Brandon” are akin to ISIS, the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazis. He later deleted the tweet.
CNN political analyst Joe Lockhart claimed that people who say "Let's go Brandon," an anti-Biden sentiment, are akin to global terrorist group ISIS, violent white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan, and Germany's Aryan scourge, the Nazis. He later deleted the tweet.
Lockhart, who was the press secretary under Bill Clinton, made the proclamation that the meme "Let's go Brandon" is a "coded statement," bearing similarity to other coded statements over the years, notably from notoriously bad actors on the national and global stage.
"Let's go Brandon" has become another, more polite way of saying "f*ck Joe Biden," as President Biden's approval ratings continue to slide. As college football games this fall, chants of "f*ck Joe Biden" could be heard emanating from stadiums across the country. Little reporting was done on that from the mainstream side of American media.
But this past weekend, mainstream media outlets were horrified to discover that "Let's go Brandon" was essentially a euphemism for "the president sucks and is doing a really poor job of running the country."
Once they learned that, NPR, the Associated Press, and yes, CNN, decided that the term was some kind of hate speech, as though in the United States of America criticizing the president is not a time-honored tradition practiced by the best and worst among us for as long as there has been a president.
"Let's Go, Brandon" is hilarious. Stop pretending you're offended. You're not.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro)
These networks and outlets fell all over themselves to explain the term, as though most of America didn't already know that the meme meant "not only is the president pretty terrible, but when we voice that opinion mainstream media tries to cover it up by saying we're saying something else."
The meme was in fact started by an NBC announcer, which perhaps Lockhart didn't take into account, who said that when a crowd was chanting "f*ck Joe Biden" at a NASCAR event, they were actually saying "Let's go Brandon," to cheer on the winner. They were not. America listened, and heard.
NBC claimed that the use of "Let's go Brandon" was akin to threats of violence against the president.
The ire over the meme was comical given that for four years, entertainers, politicians, pundits, and more said "f*ck Donald Trump" from as many platforms as they had available to them.
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