White House tries again to rebrand Biden, this time as ‘Dark Brandon’

Several White House staffers and Democrats have taken to social media to try to rebrand President Biden as “Dark Brandon” amid a string of legislative victories.

“Dark Brandon is crushing it,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates tweeted Sunday evening along with an image of Biden with laser eyes.

“Your malarkey has gone on long enough kid,” the image’s caption read.

Bates then tweeted another meme with the captions “malarkey will end” and “dark Brandon rises” in response to a tweet criticizing his initial post. The image appeared to depict Biden as Batman.

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But conservatives pointed out that the second image tweeted by Bates included eagle imagery similar to the logo used by the Nazi Party in the 1930s.

“Personally, I’m not surprised you’re tweeting Nazi eagle pictures of your boss remembering his segregationist ‘mentor,'” tweeted Abigail Marone, a spokeswoman for Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Rep.

“‘Dark Brandon’ started as Chinese propaganda and then was co-opted by the White House using Nazi eagle imagery…” tweeted Alec Sears, a digital staffer at the Republican National Committee. “They’re not sending their best.”

“In 2020, the Trump campaign faced a week of stories and fact-checking about an eagle T-shirt,” tweeted Tim Murtaugh, communications director for former President Trump’s 2020 campaign. “Let’s see if a tweet from an official Biden White House account gets the same treatment.”

However, the image’s apparent creator said Monday that the image was never the “Reichsadler” seen in Nazi imagery, in an interview with The Washington Post. He said it was instead meant to represent a bald eagle.

The White House suggested that the accusation of Nazi imagery originated with Jack Posobiec, a conservative commentator linked to conspiracy theories.

“Who could have guessed that some Pizzagate/QAnon guy is lying?” Bates told Fox News Digital in an email. “Did you all see it though?”

Bates pointed to a tweet on Monday containing allegations by General Mark Milleythe chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that former President Trump insisted that American generals were more like “German generals in World War II.”

The nickname “Dark Brandon” appears to have started on Twitter in March among anonymous Biden followers seeking to create an “edgy” version of the president, according to an online meme database. The meme also aims to co-opt the “let’s go Brandon” meme that originated among conservatives online and has become popular for those opposed to the Biden administration’s agenda.

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Also, Rob Flaherty, the White House director of digital strategy, tweeted an image of Biden with laser eyes. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., also appeared to parrot the “dark Brandon” meme, posting an animation of Biden without any captions on Sunday.

Megan Apper, who left the White House earlier this year to join the State Department, joined the “Dark Brandon” tweets, tweeting: “Dark Brandon said, ‘here’s the deal’ and then there was a deal.”

Biden’s apparent rebranding comes after several victories that Democrats said showed the president has successfully overcome gridlock on Capitol Hill.

In June, Biden signed a gun control bill that incentivizes states to pass red flag laws and introduce increased background checks, and last week, Biden signed the Science and Chips Act of $280 billion, which increases funding for the domestic semiconductor supply chain.

President Biden speaks on inflation and supply chain issues in Los Angeles.
(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

And on Sunday, the Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a broad budget reconciliation package that would introduce new green energy incentives and try to lower pharmaceutical prices.

“For decades, the gun lobby and oil companies and pharmaceuticals controlled Washington. And ordinary people suffered,” Murphy tweeted. “I [sic] then, in one summer, everything changed. The first gun safety bill in 30 years. Historical legislation on climate change. Containment of drug costs. It just goes.”

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However, conservatives were quick to criticize the Democrats who claimed victory and rebranded Biden as “Dark Brandon”.

“You can try to make a Dark Brandon meme out of sub-40 approval ratings all you want, but throwing hundreds of billions at green boondoggles in the middle of an inflationary spiral isn’t going to change things.” tweeted conservative commentator Ben Shapiro Monday.