In recent years, the Left has let no incident, no matter how trivial, pass without turning it into a vehicle with which to virtue signal their outrage. Six years ago, it was horror over the shooting of a lion in Zimbabwe. Two years later, it was President Trump’s statement about a demonstration in Charlottesville. Today, it is a Southwest Airlines pilot’s use of an anti-Joe Biden slogan.
Brandon Brown seems to be everywhere these days, a previously unknown NASCAR driver who has become the poster boy for progressive outrage. Last month, when NBC reporter Kelli Stavast interviewed Brown immediately after his first victory at Talladega, she exclaimed that the background crowd was chanting “Let’s go Brandon!” instead of the clearly discernible “[Expletive] Joe Biden.”
Thus, a star was born.
Stavast’s transparent switcheroo quickly made the phrase a commentary on the Mainstream Media’s habit of intentionally distorting objective reality to favor Democrats. Then, as it quickly spread in conservative circles, “Let’s go Brandon” became harmless, if slightly immature internet gag with which to mock Biden.
Never content to let a jab at Biden remain just that, the Left has imbued this cheeky expression with all manner of sinister mysticism, just as they did for “learn to code” and the “OK” hand gesture before that.
The perception by the Left that there is an Alt-Right boogeyman behind every meme, and a KKK sympathizer hiding under every red “MAGA” hat, is approaching a clinical psychosis that induces bizarre behavior from the Left.
What, then, is to be done to the Southwest Airlines pilot, whose un-apropos attempt at humor while preparing to land a commercial airliner has caused such an internet ruckus? Is his unprofessional lapse in judgment grounds for a disciplinary demerit from his employer? Or must it be considered another “the-sky-is-falling” catastrophe that endangered lives and triggered racist fears among the passengers on board, and necessitated federal prosecution?
For today’s hyper-sensitive progressives, any words or actions that can be construed to be critical of President Biden, if uttered or undertaken by a real or a perceived conservative, are considered grist for the victimhood mill. Any such words or deeds must be considered “violent,” “dangerous,” or, worst of all, “racist,” and then twisted into a link back to January 6th.
For a group of people who have spent every hour of every day from November 8, 2016 to January 20, 2021 chirping about fascism residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (and at Mar-a-Lago), these thin-skinned progressives have drawn an incredibly fine line between free speech and speech that invites the scrutiny of law enforcement.
The sad truth revealed in all this is that progressives have become the most joyless, paranoid people in politics, if not in all their myriad endeavors. It seems impossible for them to take pleasure in anything, since everything is problematic if not potentially devastating. But while they have always been a humorless lot, their post-January 6th penchant for calling on federal law enforcement to punish their perceived tormentors, makes them highly dangerous as well.
Living amongst this extremely vindictive brood is becoming more dangerous each day, but not in the way progressives believe the refrain, “Let’s go, Brandon,” is dangerous. The danger posed by these many faux victims is very real -- to our lives, to our liberty, and to our property.
In the public arena, they strive to control our school boards, lead city councils, run police departments, serve in Congress, and stack the courts with their kind. To them, the private sector must be similarly controlled, with mandatory training to expose “unconscious bias,” organized rooting out “white extremism,” and forced medical mandates; all with the caveat, comply or else.
A society controlled by adults having the temperament of toddlers but with access to the levers of real power, is the image that must remain foremost in our mind’s eye as we vote next year and again in 2024. These are elections that can ensure that our futures and those of our children, do not remain in the hands of people who have proved they cannot be trusted to trim the grass of our lawns, much less run our lives.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.