The Dark Brandon rises

“We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature. For without unity there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward.”

That was President Biden during his Inauguration Speech in January 2021. Nice words. Hard to argue against. After all, America has always been at its best when unified. During World War II and after 9/11. Division has never served us well. 

Fast forward to September 2022. President Biden is averaging around 42 percent approval, still the lowest of any first-term president in the history of polling, from Truman to Trump. Inflation, sitting at 8.5 percent (it was 1.4 percent in January 2021), is still by far the public’s number-one concern going into the midterm elections. FiveThirtyEight gives Republicans a 75 percent chance of taking back the House of Representatives. And six in 10 voters believe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan will worsen inflation, per a new CNBC poll. 

So it appears the White House strategy is to avoid talking about inflation or the economy in general, or still-way-too-high gas prices at nearly $4.00 per gallon (gas was about $2.40 per gallon when Biden took office), or the violent crime continually plaguing American cities, or the essentially open U.S. border or 300 Americans dying each day from opioid/fentanyl overdoses. Instead, the plan appears to be to make the midterms a referendum on Donald Trump voters. 

“There’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans! And that is a threat to this country,” Biden declared in a divisive speech in Philadelphia last week

“Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are a threat to the very soul of this country,” he tweeted afterward. 

Call it the rise of “Dark Brandon.” Brandon, of course, infamously became a nickname for Biden after a NASCAR race last year was won by Brandon Brown at Talladega Speedway. The Alabama crowd began chanting “(Expletive) Joe Biden” during an NBC trackside interview after the race, which could clearly be heard by viewers at home. 

But NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast, who was tasked with interviewing Brown on the track, told the audience watching at home that the crowd was really chanting “Let’s go, Brandon!” 

“You can hear the chants from the crowd. Let’s go, Brandon!” she said. And an anti-Biden meme was born.

But in recent weeks, the Biden Team has embraced the Brandon nickname, and has been repurposing it as “Dark Brandon” whenever the president goes on the offensive. And that’s exactly what Biden did during his “soul of the nation” speech.

So not only was the leader who promised to unify the country attempting to do the exact opposite of that, he did so flanked by ominous red-lighted walls and with two Marines as props behind him. Whoever at the White House thought that either of these optics was a good idea should seek employment elsewhere. 

The speech wasn’t as warmly embraced as the White House had anticipated, either. “Whatever you think of this speech the military is supposed to be apolitical,” CNN’s Brianna Keilar tweeted. “Positioning Marines in uniform behind President Biden for a political speech flies in the face of that. It’s wrong when Democrats do it. It’s wrong when Republicans do it.”

Caught off guard by the blowback, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates responded to Keilar directly. “Except it’s not political. In the same way CNN isn’t political but has made the same warnings,” he retorted.

And when Biden was asked by Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy about the tone and divisiveness of his speech after he accused 74 million Trump voters of being a direct threat to democracy, the president pretended he’d never said such a thing.  

“You keep trying to make that case. I don’t consider any Trump supporters a threat to the country,” Biden said, contradicting what he had said less than 24 hours earlier. 

We’ve heard this kind rhetoric from Biden for some time: If you oppose Biden and his party on federalizing voting laws, for example, you’re on the side of George Wallace, Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis. Biden later denied having made that comparison too. 

In a related story, a Quinnipiac poll taken earlier this year shows a plurality of Americans believe Biden has done more to divide than unite the country. 

But another poll out last week should be more alarming. A YouGov/Economist poll shows more than 40 percent of voters believe the U.S. could be engaged in a civil war before the end of the decade. Biden’s mixed messages about unity aren’t helping matters one bit.

Joe Concha is a media and politics columnist.