OPINION:
The catchphrase “Let’s go, Brandon!” has spread like wildfire, in chants at sporting events and other large gatherings, as a G-rated transliteration of a vulgarism aimed at the president, “F—- Joe Biden.” It also has gone viral in online memes, montages, and mashups.
That has more than a few noses—dare we say, bluenoses—out of joint among Democrats and the liberal media, who apparently have short memories. (More on that in a moment.)
We’ll concede that they have a point: The NC-17-rated version is a crude and unbecoming way to refer to any President, even one you strenuously disagree with—as we do with Mr. Biden. It contributes to the downward spiral of our civil discourse into uncivil “discourse.”
For the uninitiated, the phrase became an internet sensation on Oct. 2 after an NBC sports reporter at a NASCAR race erroneously stated that fans in the stands were chanting “Let’s Go, Brandon!” after a win by driver Brandon Brown, when they were actually shouting “F—- Joe Biden!”
It’s both laughable and galling that many of the same people now “tut-tutting,” “tsk-tsking,” and wagging fingers (index, not middle) about the ad hominem attacks on Mr. Biden never raised an eyebrow — much less an objection — for four years as the uncivil left strafed the public square with “F-bombs” (minus any dashes or asterisks) at protests against then-President Donald Trump.
How soon the talking heads—hosts and guests alike—on CNN and MSNBC forget laughing, for example, about the vulgar pink p—— hats worn at the anti-Trump far-left women’s march on Jan. 21, 2017, the day after his inauguration.
What should have been “tut-tutting” and “tsk-tsking” then was more like “wink-wink, nudge-nudge.”
Unlike now, in the left’s view, when Mr. Trump was in the White House, the vile incivility was de rigueur.
Where were Democrats’ and the liberal media’s outrage when actor Robert De Niro received a standing ovation in June 2018 from the glitterati at the Tony Awards after uttering “F—- Trump”?
Does anyone remember them castigating actor Johnny Depp, who invoked John Wilkes Booth in the United Kingdom at a June 2017 music festival in musing aloud: “When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?”
Or that same month, when the Public Theater in New York staged an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” that featured a Trump-like character in the title role getting stabbed to death? That was just artistic freedom, we were told.
Did any of those now taking—or should we say, faking—umbrage at “Let’s Go, Brandon!” criticize Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who within hours of being sworn into office on Jan. 4, 2019, vowed: “We’re going to impeach the motherf——-!”
For the record, the politically poisonous rhetoric of the left is neither new nor limited to Mr. Trump. Recall that about a decade ago, today’s neo-prude progressives found it side-splittingly funny to tag conservative Tea Party activists with the sexual slur “tea-baggers.”
But that was then, and this is now.
“‘Let’s go, Brandon’ is Republicans’ vulgar governing agenda,” whined liberal Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank. Post reporters Ashley Parker and Carissa Wolf lamented what they considered “vitriol” from Biden’s critics in an article, “Biden’s critics hurl increasingly vulgar taunts.”
CNN’s John Avlon denounced “Let’s go, Brandon!” as “trollish” and “not patriotic.”
Following reports that a pilot for Southwest Airlines on Oct. 29 concluded his preflight intercom greeting with the chant, CNN analyst Asha Rangappa likened it to a terrorist chanting “Long live ISIS” and suggesting the pilot should be fired.
“I’ve always loved flying Southwest. Don’t plan on doing it ever again,” complained Will Bunch, a liberal columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
As such, let’s call the Democrats’ and liberal media’s objections to “Let’s Go, Brandon!” what they are: Selective indignation. As conservative radio talk-show host Chris Plante likes to say, “If it weren’t for double standards, the left would have no standards at all.”
That said, we’d like to see a return to political civility — on both sides of the aisle. Regrettably, however, in the age of Twitter, that’s not likely to happen.
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