Democrats are trying to wrest back "Let's Go Brandon"
Plus: How politicians are fundraising off the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago
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How politicians are fundraising off the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago
Democrats are trying to wrest back "Let's Go Brandon"
It’s true, there was J6 performance art piece at CPAC
How politicians are fundraising off the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago
The FBI searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club on Monday, reportedly looking for classified White House documents, and the political fundraising apparatus has sprung into action.
Trump’s political action committee Save America sent a fundraising email calling it “dark times for our Nation.” “Please rush in a donation IMMEDIATELY to publicly stand with me against this NEVERENDING WITCH HUNT.>>,” the email read.
A handful of candidates have ads about Mar-a-Lago running on Facebook’s ad platform, including Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Savannah Maddox, who wrote “Every day, it feels like our country is becoming more and more of a third-world country.”
Angie Spillman, a county board of commissioners candidate in North Carolina, ran Trump’s statement on the search as an ad and wrote, “What we are witnessing is our Republic being stolen from us right in front of our faces.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is running several ads fundraising off the news, including one showing an aerial shot of Mar-a-Lago from MSNBC.
On the left, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is promoting a “But Her Emails” merch line from her super PAC Onward Together. The $32 “But Her Emails” dad hat and a $29 ringer tee already sold out.
Democrats are trying to wrest back "Let's Go Brandon"
Before “thanks Obama” was an earnest liberal expression of gratitude, it was an anti-Obama hashtag. Before Trump supporters considered “deplorable” a badge of honor, it was meant as a dig.
Political memes are often co-opted by the other side, and as President Joe Biden experiences a late summer ~narrative shift~, Democrats are attempting to wrest Republicans’ euphemism for “F*** Joe Biden.”
Joementum is back following a week that saw the airstrike that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, a jobs report showing more than half a million new jobs created, and the Senate passage of a scaled-back Build Back Better bill. White House staff celebrated on Twitter with images of “Dark Brandon,” pushing an ironic meme into the mainstream.
“Dark Brandon” imagines Biden as a villain protagonist with illustrations by Chinese artist Yang Guan and Photoshopped photos of Biden with red, glowing crypto eyes. It’s a riff on the right-wing “Dark MAGA” aesthetic and a response to the genre of memes showing Trump as Rambo or warrior king.
White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates tweeted “Dark Brandon crushing it” on Sunday, and after director of digital strategy Rob Flaherty posted a “Dark Brandon” meme on his official @RFlaherty46 account, he tweeted on main, “Did Dark Brandon over on the official so it goes in the archives.”
It’s typically thought that when a meme goes mainstream, that’s the end of its life cycle. In politics, though, politicians lean into memes to cultivate a persona while their supporters use them to stan.
Former President Barack Obama did his own “thanks Obama” bit in a BuzzFeed video and Trump had a poster showing himself as a “Games of Thrones” character conspicuously laying out one day when the press walked in.
Biden’s “Uncle Joe” persona — a Veep-era relic — was jettisoned long ago, and without a meme to call his own, Biden’s persona as president has been defined on the right by “Let’s Go Brandon,” gaffes, and gas station “I Did That” stickers.
As falling gas prices transform the stickers into an asset, though, the Brandon administration is in a stronger position to define itself by its wins instead of its losses.
It’s true, there was J6 performance art piece at CPAC
A performance art piece at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas, last week showed a man in a red MAGA hat and orange jumpsuit behind bars. It even featured an actual convicted Jan. 6 rioter as the actor.
Vice was on the scene last Thursday when Brandon Straka sat for the installation. Straka plead guilty last year to a misdemeanor charge for disorderly conduct in connection with his actions on Jan. 6, 2021. Court records found that Straka cooperated with investigators, sharing information about “Stop the Steal” rally organizers, and he got 90 days home detention.
Straka spoke at a panel at CPAC and there was a line to see him in the installation, according to Vice. At one point, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) visited Straka to hug and pray with him.
More than 850 people have been charged with crimes in connection with Jan. 6. The longest sentence so far has gone to Guy Reffitt, a 49-year-old Texas man and member of a rightwing militia group who was sentenced last Monday to 87 months in prison on charges including civil disorder and obstruction of justice.
Reffitt’s daughters spoke out about Trump after the sentencing. “Trump deserves life in prison if my father’s in prison this long,” one said.
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