This would have been a great April Fools piece because there’s so much wrong that it seems deliberate, but I’m just going to comment on the title.
Dark Brandon won’t be a thing until people yell it at sporting events or you see minor controversies over whether it can appear on a vanity license plate. Someone needs to remind Matt that Twitter isn’t a real place.
To voice a fundamentally uncool and non-memeable opinion: I liked politics and news a lot more before they started including memes. The Macy's Parade rickroll was one of the most depressing things I've ever had the misfortune to watch on television.
It's simply difficult to break away from Team Incremental Pragmatism when radicalizing in either direction means accepting a culture of shitposting and sanewashed 4chan cruft. I suppose it makes sense in today's world where "winning on the Internet" is the only kind of winning many people are ever accustomed to anymore.
I have a question about Dem strategy with the IRA. I am pretty happy that Dems got it together to get this passed, but the more I learn about the details, I am questioning some of the choices they made. For instance, with Medicare prescription drug piece, I have read that the first year that negotiated prices will be in effect will be 2026, over three years and two election cycles from now. Also, I just read that the $2,000 annual limit on prescription drug costs for individuals won't start until 2025. I am sure there may be policy justifications for these delays (or maybe they just wanted to tamp down industry resistance?), but it seems like political malpractice to make these important changes and then put them on hold for years. Imagine in 2024, Biden (or whoever the nominee is) will be campaigning on these important accomplishments, but they STILL won't have made any difference to a single American.
>>>But with some key legislative wins under his belt and global commodity prices apparently falling, there’s a chance Dark Brandon can pull off something similar.<<<
My biggest fear for Dark Brandon is that the extreme strength of the job market means the Fed's efforts won't "bear fruit" until well into 2023. Which might mean the economy will not have recovered with sufficient vigor (after an engineered slowdown) by the mid-point in 2024 to get him another term. Ronald Reagan (like a lot of successful presidents) enjoyed excellent timing. He entered the White House during a period of grave weakness, and the country was in a very deep recession within a year or so of his taking the oath of office. But that translated into a sharp recovery by mid '83.
If Biden is facing a recession in his first term, he needs it to start, like, immediately.
The historically calcified partisanship of the American electorate in 2022 without a doubt means the business cycle and "structural picture" don't matter quite as much as they used to. So, never say never: perhaps Biden could overcome an actual recession in 2024 (Trump very nearly did in 2020!). But I wouldn't count on it. Persuadables aren't as common as they used to be. But they still exist in pretty substantial numbers. And they surely like jobs a lot more than unemployment.
I didn’t write that the economy won’t recover with sufficient vigor. I wrote that the economy may not recover with sufficient vigor in time to help Biden secure another term. And that’s because the CURRENT vigor of the economy and labor market may be sufficient to hold off recession for many months. Again, if we are going to have a recession, Biden and the Democrats had better hope it arrives sooner rather than later.
EDIT: IOW, the way I see it, we're witnessing a tug of war between the hot job market and the Fed's effort to cool that market. I suspect (fear, really) the outcome of that tug of war may play an outsized role on whether we see a MAGA restoration in 2024, or not. A precipitous cooling in the next few months would likely leave enough time for things to heat up again by 2024 (which is goog for Biden). A cooling that doesn't arrive until well into 2023? That's more doubtful...
This is a good explainer to the normie folks out there but at the sake of revealing my insanity, it’s worth pointing out that Dark Brandon’s canonical beginning (at least on Twitter) was from irony-poisoned left Twitter users who delved into some darker, really esoteric stuff, including Biden launching a coup and a specific hatred for Serbs. Check this out from April 2022!
Am I the only one who thinks that Biden's endorsement of same-sex marriage wasn't a gaffe?
Obama wanted to stop lying about his own position on this issue. He decided to gauge how the public would react if a member of his administration broke with him. He picked the one who was famous for always saying goofy things and then having to clarify his remarks.
Now there's same-sex marriage. Am I a conspiracy theorist?
One the one hand, I'm grateful for the explainer, because I was definitely a bit puzzled about the layering involved in the "dark Brandon" thing.
On the other hand, I think most of my exposure to it was from following Matt on Twitter, so I think I've just paid him to solve a problem that he created.
This would have been a great April Fools piece because there’s so much wrong that it seems deliberate, but I’m just going to comment on the title.
Dark Brandon won’t be a thing until people yell it at sporting events or you see minor controversies over whether it can appear on a vanity license plate. Someone needs to remind Matt that Twitter isn’t a real place.
To voice a fundamentally uncool and non-memeable opinion: I liked politics and news a lot more before they started including memes. The Macy's Parade rickroll was one of the most depressing things I've ever had the misfortune to watch on television.
It's simply difficult to break away from Team Incremental Pragmatism when radicalizing in either direction means accepting a culture of shitposting and sanewashed 4chan cruft. I suppose it makes sense in today's world where "winning on the Internet" is the only kind of winning many people are ever accustomed to anymore.
How is it that there are no "Dark Brandon" Halloween costumes available?
Isn't that just wearing a suit with your hair slicked back and colored contacts or something that does lighting effects around your eyes?
I have a question about Dem strategy with the IRA. I am pretty happy that Dems got it together to get this passed, but the more I learn about the details, I am questioning some of the choices they made. For instance, with Medicare prescription drug piece, I have read that the first year that negotiated prices will be in effect will be 2026, over three years and two election cycles from now. Also, I just read that the $2,000 annual limit on prescription drug costs for individuals won't start until 2025. I am sure there may be policy justifications for these delays (or maybe they just wanted to tamp down industry resistance?), but it seems like political malpractice to make these important changes and then put them on hold for years. Imagine in 2024, Biden (or whoever the nominee is) will be campaigning on these important accomplishments, but they STILL won't have made any difference to a single American.
I have nothing to add, snarky or otherwise. Thanks for this. You described the issue aptly.
It's been a very pleasant summer surprise.
Whenever I am at a store and its out of an item, I always mutter to myself "Dammit Brandon!".
Wow, Know Your Meme has really upped their game lately in terms of the level of talent they're bringing in.
>>>But with some key legislative wins under his belt and global commodity prices apparently falling, there’s a chance Dark Brandon can pull off something similar.<<<
My biggest fear for Dark Brandon is that the extreme strength of the job market means the Fed's efforts won't "bear fruit" until well into 2023. Which might mean the economy will not have recovered with sufficient vigor (after an engineered slowdown) by the mid-point in 2024 to get him another term. Ronald Reagan (like a lot of successful presidents) enjoyed excellent timing. He entered the White House during a period of grave weakness, and the country was in a very deep recession within a year or so of his taking the oath of office. But that translated into a sharp recovery by mid '83.
If Biden is facing a recession in his first term, he needs it to start, like, immediately.
The historically calcified partisanship of the American electorate in 2022 without a doubt means the business cycle and "structural picture" don't matter quite as much as they used to. So, never say never: perhaps Biden could overcome an actual recession in 2024 (Trump very nearly did in 2020!). But I wouldn't count on it. Persuadables aren't as common as they used to be. But they still exist in pretty substantial numbers. And they surely like jobs a lot more than unemployment.
The economy won’t recover with sufficient vigor because the labor market is too tight? Is that even logically possible?
I didn’t write that the economy won’t recover with sufficient vigor. I wrote that the economy may not recover with sufficient vigor in time to help Biden secure another term. And that’s because the CURRENT vigor of the economy and labor market may be sufficient to hold off recession for many months. Again, if we are going to have a recession, Biden and the Democrats had better hope it arrives sooner rather than later.
EDIT: IOW, the way I see it, we're witnessing a tug of war between the hot job market and the Fed's effort to cool that market. I suspect (fear, really) the outcome of that tug of war may play an outsized role on whether we see a MAGA restoration in 2024, or not. A precipitous cooling in the next few months would likely leave enough time for things to heat up again by 2024 (which is goog for Biden). A cooling that doesn't arrive until well into 2023? That's more doubtful...
This is a good explainer to the normie folks out there but at the sake of revealing my insanity, it’s worth pointing out that Dark Brandon’s canonical beginning (at least on Twitter) was from irony-poisoned left Twitter users who delved into some darker, really esoteric stuff, including Biden launching a coup and a specific hatred for Serbs. Check this out from April 2022!
https://twitter.com/cityafreaks/status/1516522301965099010?s=21&t=ciPe4DV5m0R0LIJUW8TN3w
has anyone done a cyclops version of this, seems an obvious idea, aviators, laser eyes
metal AF
Matt’s Vox explainer of the American Chopper chair-throwing meme was great too: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2018/4/10/17207588/american-chopper-meme. Matt missed his calling as a Comp Lit professor.
This was a fantastic article, and I was there were a lot more like it in the world. Simple, clear, and accessible explanations are surprisingly rare.
Am I the only one who thinks that Biden's endorsement of same-sex marriage wasn't a gaffe?
Obama wanted to stop lying about his own position on this issue. He decided to gauge how the public would react if a member of his administration broke with him. He picked the one who was famous for always saying goofy things and then having to clarify his remarks.
Now there's same-sex marriage. Am I a conspiracy theorist?
Joe Biden and Gavin Newsom are the perfect pair to oops same-sex marriage into existence.
So maybe that guy telling Biden "Let's go Brandon" during the Christmas call was a big Biden supporter way ahead of his time.
One the one hand, I'm grateful for the explainer, because I was definitely a bit puzzled about the layering involved in the "dark Brandon" thing.
On the other hand, I think most of my exposure to it was from following Matt on Twitter, so I think I've just paid him to solve a problem that he created.