Tag Archive: Democrats

Democrats co-opt Republican meme as “Dark Brandon” goes viral

The attack that turned into a compliment

In an amazing flipping of the script, Democrats have taken back a Republican phrase used to denigrate President Joe Biden.

It all started last October, at the Sparks 300 NASCAR race at Talladega Motor Speedway in Alabama. During winner Brandon Brown‘s post-race interview, some in the crowd began chanting “Fu*k Joe Biden!” The interviewer instead claimed, either unknowingly or deliberately, that the crowd was chanting “Let’s Go Brandon!”

Soon, Republicans started saying “Let’s Go Brandon!” as a euphemism for the epithet against President Biden. Even a number of leading Republican politicians began uttering the phrase, wearing t-shirts and masks displaying the phrase, and referring to the Biden administration as “the Brandon administration.” The “Brandon” saying was going strong as recently as this past weekend, at Donald Trump‘s Saudi-sponsored golf tournament:

https://twitter.com/magatalker/status/1554112313887805441

However, over the past week or so, Democrats have suddenly taken the “Brandon” epithet back, and have turned it into an instant smash hit for President Biden.

Growing Twitter army touts Biden, Democratic accomplishments

Twitter activism is a click away

It’s no secret that Democratic Party has been slow to come up with a unifying theme for the 2022 midterm elections. We recently suggested that President Joe Biden, Congressman Eric Swalwell and others may have hit upon the unofficial theme “Freedom is on the Ballot” in November. That’s pretty good, and it should be spread far and wide. But the other part that is needed, especially when defending the last two years of Democrats in control of the White House and the U.S. House (control of the Senate is more tenuous with a 50-50 tie), is a strong recital of the Democrats’ record of accomplishments during this time.

Here’s where Twitter comes in. President Biden in particular has been very good about touting his administration’s achievements. For example, Biden is correctly taking credit for actions (such as releasing millions of barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve) that have led to a summer of falling gasoline prices:

Likewise, Biden White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain likes to get in on the action:

But in addition to these government officials, there is a growing army of citizens on Twitter who are spreading good news about President Biden’s and the Democrats’ accomplishments far and wide. Some of the prominent accounts in this Twitter army, including their Twitter page description and sample tweets, are:

With midterm elections coming up fast, do Democrats finally have a theme?

“Freedom” is just potatoes to Republicans

The 2022 midterm elections are just 124 days away, and the results will likely make or break Joe Biden‘s presidency and the Democratic Party’s agenda. All seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as approximately one-third of U.S. Senate seats, are up for grabs. If the Republicans gain a majority in either house of Congress, at minimum, the Biden/Democratic agenda will be stymied as they won’t be able to pass any meaningful legislation. Additionally, either house under Republican control will bog the government down in senseless hearings involving laptops and other shiny object distractions, in order for the GOP to try to score political points. Moreover, many state and local offices are up for election, which could determine how crucial matters ranging from abortion to elections themselves are handled. Suffice it to say that, if any Democrats claim “this is one of the most important elections of your lifetime,” they are not exaggerating.

Republicans, predictably, are bashing President Biden and Democrats over inflation and gasoline prices as their 2022 election theme. Fair enough, as the party out of power generally attacks on any economic front that it can, even though in this case, Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine, as well as leftover COVID-based supply chain problems, both of which can be laid at the feet of Donald Trump, are largely to blame. Indeed, inflation is a problem worldwide, and the United States is on the lower side of gasoline prices around the world.

Therefore, it would be really helpful if the Democratic Party would express a unifying and galvanizing theme for the upcoming elections, to counter the Republicans and drive all-important voter turnout. This has worked in the past, e.g., House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi‘s healthcare message for the 2018 midterms, which led to a Democratic takeover of the U.S. House, catapulting Pelosi to House Speaker.

As it turns out, President Biden and Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell of California, among others, seem to be leading the way with a theme that can succeed for the Democrats in this year’s elections. That theme can be seen in recent tweets from Biden and Rep. Swalwell:

Donald Trump impeached for third time

Next stop for Donald Trump?

Those who followed last Tuesday’s fourth hearing held by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol were treated to a stunning play-by-play of Donald Trump‘s criminal behavior in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The Committee impeached Trump’s character in every way.

Most devastating to Trump were the recordings of various telephone calls he, often accompanied by others such as Rudolph Giuliani, made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Arizona Speaker of the House Russell Bowers, pleading with them to entertain false claims of voter fraud, replace electors for Joe Biden with fake electors for Donald Trump, or “find votes” for Trump, all with the intent of overturning Biden’s election victories over Trump in those states. On such calls, Trump also made threats to these officials, such as threats of prosecution, for failing to follow through on Trump’s wishes.

While Raffensperger, Bowers and other state officials stood up to Trump, these calls by Trump were a big mistake, as he failed to insulate himself from criminal liability the way a Mafia don usually does, by letting others do his dirty work. As a result, Donald Trump faces a criminal investigation in Georgia, and members of the January 6 Committee say they have enough evidence to refer a criminal indictment against Trump to the U.S. Department of Justice. At minimum, Trump’s calls to Raffensperger and Bowers were as bad as his July 2019 phone call to Ukraine‘s President Vlodymyr Zelensky, during which Trump demanded that Zelensky investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter to help Trump in his 2020 election efforts, in return for the U.S. providing weapons to Ukraine so it could defend itself against Russia. That call to Zelensky led to Trump’s first impeachment.

Wading into the right wing comments section on YouTube

The popular Assault Weapons Ban

This past week, on a YouTube channel I watch regularly, a commenter from Australia asked an unrelated question about gun violence in America, and I was off to the races. Quite an animated discussion ensued.

Interestingly, the channel is not a YouTube politics channel. Rather, it’s a special interest channel that is not officially political. Think of a channel about sneaker collecting, for example, and you’ll get the idea. However, the host is conservative. Most of his guests are conservative. And most regular commenters on the channel are likewise conservative, and they all express their views frequently, such as when talking about markets and financial issues. Normally, I don’t respond to their many right wing statements and comments. And often, I don’t tune in at all, not wanting to reward the channel with more viewership. However, as the transcript below indicates, I spontaneously waded into a fast-moving political discussion on this particular stream, and I think the exchange provides insight into two things:

  1. The right wing talking points on gun violence
  2. Our ability to fight back, and even drive the conversation, with good Democratic talking points. I found that mine came quite naturally, after having absorbed and participated in so many discussions for years.

I am not naming the channel in order to further minimize its viewership, as well as to maintain the commenters’ privacy. Likewise, I used each commenter’s initial (or initials) instead of their names to differentiate them below, with mine being “MM.” I bolded my comments to make them easier to identify. Finally, in order to keep the spontaneity, I did not correct the comments for spelling, punctuation, grammar, content, etc.

Here is the bulk of the conversation that took place:

How will Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover affect Democrats?

Arbiter of free speech?

Yesterday, it was reported that Elon Musk will be buying Twitter for approximately $44 billion, and taking the company private. While Musk claims to value “free speech,” Democrats in particular are worried that Musk’s takeover of Twitter will mean the unbanning and unleashing of right wing violent hate speech. First and foremost on the minds of many such Democrats is the potential reinstatement of Donald Trump, who was permanently suspended from Twitter in January 2020 “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” after Trump inspired, and allegedly instigated, the January 6, 2021 right wing terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol. Of course, nothing is permanent when Twitter is about to change hands. And speaking of hands, Elon Musk has tipped his repeatedly by using Republican code words, such as saying that “woke mind virus” and “wokeness” are threats to civilization.

Donald Trump claims that he will continue to stay off of Twitter, in favor of his Truth Social platform. However, Truth Social has been an abject failure, and access to the many millions of Twitter users would be a temptation for any public figure, even one who wasn’t already a congenital liar like Trump.

Superstar Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin discusses January 6 insurrection

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin

Last night, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland’s 8th Congressional District appeared on a monthly national call by the advocacy group American Promise. Raskin, former law professor at American University, wrote the book Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy about the extraordinary events after his 2020 re-election to Congress. On December 31, 2020 Raskin lost his son to suicide. One week later, Raskin witnessed the January 6, 2021 Republican terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol while Congress was trying to complete the Electoral College vote count to certify the election victory of President Joe Biden. Rep. Raskin is now a member of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol. Raskin was also Lead counsel for Donald Trump‘s second impeachment trial for inciting what Raskin calls the January 6 “coup.”

Here are some highlights from the call with Rep. Raskin:

Republicans overreach, fall on their faces in Ketanji Brown Jackson Supreme Court confirmation

The U.S. Supreme Court just became more diverse

President Joe Biden‘s historic campaign promise came to fruition yesterday, as the U.S. Senate confirmed Biden’s nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, as the first black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. The final vote was 53-47, including three Republicans. However, Jackson’s confirmation process revealed as much about the Republican Party as it did about the supremely qualified judge. It would be an understatement to say that Senate Republicans in particular made themselves look really bad.

Of course, in any Supreme Court confirmation process of the past 30 years or more, Republican Senators (as well as Democrats to some degree) can be expected to score political points and serve red meat to their respective bases, often with written statements and purported “questions” during the confirmation hearing that read like speeches. These statements frequently are turned into campaign ads and fundraising requests. This time, however, the Republicans took that tactic far into Bizarro Land, and shot themselves in the foot.

The “expensive gas is the price of freedom” meme is b.s.

Relevant sign once more

Vladimir Putin‘s Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused oil prices to skyrocket. That has in turn caused gasoline prices at the pump to increase sharply. This was entirely predictable. We are having yet another war over oil. Apparently the world has learned little since both Gulf Wars. Indeed, even Japan’s attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor over 80 years ago was largely over oil.

But some folks are saying that “expensive gas is the price of freedom.” This meme can be seen all over social media. For example:

Joe Biden wants bipartisanship — on his terms

President Biden speaking at the Port of Baltimore, November 2021

In his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Joe Biden talked about national unity, and called for bipartisanship between Democrats and Republicans. Biden has been making such appeals for some time. Indeed, Biden and other leading Democrats routinely call the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Biden signed into law last November, the “Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,” as Biden did again in his SOTU address, giving credit to Republicans as well as Democrats for its passage.

Given that Republicans generally are so uncooperative that some of them boycotted President Biden’s State of the Union address, and others even heckled Biden, why is Biden calling for bipartisanship? Several reasons come to mind: