NASCAR driver Brandon Brown has found himself in the middle of political controversy after a post-race interview recently. Now that the “Let’s Go Brandon” cheer has become a code for some of President Biden’s critics, and it’s all very caustic and reflective of an angry society looking to point fingers with one NASCAR driver stuck in the center of it, he’s not very happy about it.
Listen Closely
It all started when Brown was in the process of winning his first NASCAR Xfinity Series race. NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast was there interviewing Brown post-race when the crowd behind them started chanting “F***Joe Biden.” Stavast told Brown the crowd was saying “Let’s Go Brandon Brown.” Something Brown says he wasn’t aware of at the moment.
Recently, Brown expressed that he knows very little about Biden and though he is annoyed at the inflation of gas and other necessities, he by no means hates the man and doesn’t want his name associated with anything hateful or even anything remotely political. Now that the chant “let’s go Brandon” is now code for “F*** Joe Biden”, it isn’t something Brown comfortable with at all.
The chant has already spread across many sports and live events, taking on a sort of supernatural life of its own. Hate-filled speech disguised as a supportive chant. It’s a microaggression turning into a macroaggression before society’s eyes, with Brown unwittingly at the center of it all.
Keep Politics Out of NASCAR
The saying has become so synonymous with hating Biden that shirts and hats are now being produced with the saying on it, and there are rumors about the chant popping up in other places from Yankees games to Texas A&M games. It has become so mainstream, in fact, that a Southwest Airlines pilot is being investigated for allegedly saying it over the loudspeaker on a flight.
Brown has expressed how he wishes the chant could be co-opted into something more universally positive like “Let’s Go America”, but the likelihood of this chant being turned into something positive after already being turned into something so vitriolic seems very slim. Brown has said he has “zero interest in politics“, but it seems politics found him in the worst way.
Brown also went in to say how the NASCAR Xfinity win should’ve been a dream moment for him, but when you hear that in the background, it sort of sucks the air out of your celebration. Yes, hate speech does have a tendency to do that.