Not long after the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers for this year’s Super Bowl title, President Biden sent out a bizarre post on his X account. In the post is a picture of Biden in a blue suit with his arms crossed and an affable smile on his face. But the picture is odd because you can’t see the president’s eyes. They’ve been replaced by what look like red laser beams. Joe Biden (or someone on his media team, presumably) also attached a description to the picture, one that simply read “Dark Brandon”, and above the picture is the caption “Just like we drew it up.”
If you don’t get the reference, the picture looks creepy. If you do get the reference, the picture looks, well, even creepier, especially considering what was happening in Gaza at the moment this post was sent out into the world.
There’s a fair bit going on here, but to begin with, the president is trying to be funny. He’s attempting to troll the right wing of the Republican party (otherwise known as the Republican party). He’s drawing attention to loony rightwing conspiracy theories so he can mock them, by appropriating a meme of himself, known among the memerati (ie those who know memes) as “Dark Brandon”.
Dark Brandon begins with “Let’s go, Brandon,” a phrase that owes its origin to the NBC sports reporter Kelli Stavast. In 2021, Stavast was covering a race at the Talladega Superspeedway racetrack in Alabama. While she was interviewing Brandon Brown, the winner of the race, a crowd began yelling “Fuck Joe Biden!”, which Stavast relayed as “Let’s go, Brandon!” while on air. And lo, a meme was born.
Across the rightwing memeosphere, “Let’s go, Brandon” has become shorthand for insulting Biden and has even made it on to the floor of Congress on more than one occasion. “Let’s go, Brandon” then evolved into Dark Brandon. In this version, the president has the laser-red eyes, the sinister look and the mastery of some kind of malevolent art to accomplish his job. He is something like a video game character, and the video-gamification of our society presses on, at a cost to actual human connection. Regardless, for more than 18 months, the White House has been pushing the “Dark Brandon” meme, attempting to usurp the Republican party’s “Let’s go, Brandon!” message and to portray Biden as someone who accomplishes his agenda.
But he also just looks evil.
Before the Super Bowl, a wacky conspiracy theory also emerged. In this (let’s call it) “unique version of reality”, the Super Bowl was fixed and Kansas City destined to win. And since the Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce is dating the zillionaire superstar Taylor Swift, according to the conspiracy theory, the predictable Super Bowl triumph would solidify Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Joe Biden for president, which will elevate his chances to the stratosphere, hence Biden’s joke: “Just like we drew it up.” By the way, this unique version of reality is believed by nearly one in five Americans.
Meanwhile, this is what actually happened while the Super Bowl, watched by over 120 million people, was taking place. Israel launched its latest offensive on the town of Rafah, where more than 1.3 million Palestinians are seeking shelter with nowhere else to go. Gazans described the bombing as a “night full of horror”. Dozens of people, including women and children, were reported killed.
A spokesman for the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah said that the hospital received at least 15 bodies and 50 wounded. “There were a lot of body parts,” the spokesman said, after “successive and sudden” Israeli strikes.
Israel stated that two people taken captive on 7 October had been freed during this campaign. According to the journalist Barak Ravid, the Israeli air force “conducted heavy airstrikes in Rafah as a diversion to allow the extraction of … two hostages”. Civilians being killed “as a diversion” would almost certainly qualify as a war crime. The White House, by the way, was notified as soon as the operation was complete.
Of course the White House was notified. Without approval from the White House, Israel would not be able to carry out one of the deadliest, most destructive and plausibly genocidal military campaigns in recent history. The White House secures the finances, the weapons and the political cover for this horror to take place.
Biden was subsequently ridiculed all over social media for his Dark Brandon post, as he should have been. Despite what Biden and his people may think, an evil-looking Joe Biden is not some funny reversal of the rightwing messaging system. It’s tone-deaf to the cries of humanity. And until the president exhibits a resolve and acts to stop Israel’s extraordinary and unfathomable violence, an evil-looking Biden looks much less like a clever joke and much more like a statement of fact.
Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist
