‘Let’s go Brandon’: The intersection of humor and reality

When President Biden and first lady Jill Biden spoke with children and NORAD authorities monitoring Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, things went awry. “Let’s go Brandon,” the slogan that became an online phenomenon this year, was uttered by a father from Oregon to end his family’s chat with the Bidens. If anyone believed this joke was going to die soon, Biden breathed new life into it when he responded: “Let’s go Brandon. I agree.”

The father later said he meant it in jest. Jokes typically have a short shelf life in this age of the internet. Memes disappear from public consciousness as quickly as they emerge, owing to our ability in an interconnected world to send a message to millions of people in a moment, putting older jokes on the back burner. More than that, internet jokes usually have a single target audience, whether it’s a specific age group or community. But “Let’s go Brandon” has a profound significance: It reached most audiences in our culture and has become widespread.

NBC Sports popularized the phrase during a post-race interview with Brandon Brown, the winner of the Nascar Xfinity Series race. Fans clearly could be heard chanting “F— Joe Biden” throughout the interview. But the NBC reporter added, unprompted, that the crowd was shouting “Let’s go Brandon,” evidently in an attempt to cover for the president. The phrase has evolved into a euphemism for the actual chant and now is used to mock Democrats — and the mainstream media for their unscrupulous practices. Humor, as it turns out, is a path to truth; it is the point at which truth and our fear of communicating the truth collide.

Brandon Brown is a successful Nascar driver, but most people who have used the phrase likely do not know who he is. That’s because the chant’s “Brandon” element has nothing to do with the driver and everything to do with President Biden, the Democrats and mainstream media. In one sense, “Let’s go Brandon” is the result of years of diminished media credibility. Some media outlets repeatedly have shown they are propaganda mills for political parties. Left-wing media outlets, in particular, have run cover for Democrats and used Republicans as punching bags. When the NBC interviewer said “Let’s go Brandon,” it encapsulated how many Americans feel about the media today — when the crowd openly disparaged President Biden, like clockwork a broadcaster brazenly lied to viewers. Now everyone who hears the chant knows the context behind it.

This chant is a response to what the mainstream media have done to our country: They’ve helped to encourage the tremendous divide between Americans and made some people afraid to speak up by criticizing and labeling them for their beliefs. Now it appears that President Biden’s unintended agreement with the statement merely adds to the growing concern about his comprehension, something that even Democrats eventually must acknowledge.

President Biden is not stupid; he is a law school graduate who has served as a U.S. senator, vice president and now president of the United States. But, no matter how much Democrats want to lecture us on science and other topics, old age often brings about poor memory and a diminished overall capacity. Biden’s latest gaffe demonstrates again why people worry about his ability to understand situations.

Many media outlets have alienated people with blunders and exaggerated reporting. It will be a matter of time before Americans understand the damage this has caused to our country and journalism’s tenet of unbiased reporting. If you want to express an opinion, do so — but don’t intentionally make yourself appear as if you’re the arbiter of truth. Make your intentions transparent so that people understand why you say what you do.

To avoid unfortunate mishaps such as the “Let’s go Brandon” incident in the future, mainstream media must put truth and objectivity before their political party and keep the public’s best interests above their own.

Armstrong Williams (@ARightSide) is the owner and manager of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast Owner of the Year. He is the author of “Reawakening Virtues.”