Dark Brandon meme boosts Bidens campaign merchandise sales | Joe Biden

‘Dark Brandon’ meme boosts Biden’s campaign merchandise sales

Meme showing president with red, laserlike eyes that subverts rightwing chant is responsible for over half campaign merch sales

Joe Biden’s re-election team has apparently discovered a fundraising boon by subverting a foul-mouthed rightwing chant.

Axios reported that “Dark Brandon” items, including mugs and T-shirts, are responsible for more than half of the Biden campaign’s merchandising sales.

The Dark Brandon meme, which typically shows the president with red, laserlike eyes, emerged as a reaction to the Republican term: “Let’s go Brandon” – a phrase which is widely interpreted as code for “Fuck Joe Biden”.

The image of Biden, which first gained ground in 2022, has “been fashioned into a boast, depicting Biden playing five-dimensional chess, a master of the political dark arts”, Politico reported.

Biden’s campaign has seized upon the Dark Brandon concept, and the image of a smiling, crimson-eyed Biden has been slapped on all manner of campaign merchandise.

Visitors to the Biden-Harris official store can purchase Dark Brandon baseball caps, tote bags, and other paraphernalia, and according to Axios the “Dark” items are responsible for 54% of the store’s revenue.

The surge in revenue comes at a good time for the Biden campaign, which has been struggling to raise money from small donors, defined as people who donate $200 or less.

The New York Times reported that the Biden campaign and the Biden Victory Fund, a joint committee of the campaign, raised $10.2m from small donors across April-May, less than half the amount Barack Obama raised during the same period in 2011.

Let’s Go Brandon entered common parlance in 2021, following an incident at a Nascar race in Alabama.

After the race, some members of the crowd chanted “Fuck Joe Biden” while Brandon Brown, a driver, was being interviewed. The interviewer suggested the crowd were actually chanting “Let’s go Brandon”, and the subverted version became popular among Republicans, including some members of Congress.

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