Normalizing "Let's go, Brandon."
Joe Biden: "Well, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas."
Jared Schmeck: “Yeah, I hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas as well. Merry Christmas, and let’s go, Brandon.”
Joe Biden: “Let’s go, Brandon, I agree.”
Jared Schmeck is from Southern Oregon. His name was chosen to share Christmas Eve greetings with Joe and Jill Biden. He put a video of the chat on YouTube. It was a warm, friendly call, full of smiles and Christmas banter. Biden asked about the Schmeck family kids. Griffin wanted Santa to bring a piano, Hunter wanted Nintendo, Piper wanted Barbie, and two year old Penelope wasn't saying. Jared handed the phone to Griffin and Hunter, so they got to talk with the president--a nice keepsake for them.
The video gives an unmistakable impression of friendly happy-talk between strangers. Dogs do something similar by sniffing each other. Humans do it with words, but the words don't matter. It is signaling good will and friendly intention.
The video has been seen 311,000 times as of Monday morning. Jared is listed as the office administrator at his father's electrical contracting business. Winema Electric made repeated $500 and $1,000 contributions to Trump and the RNC in the summer and fall leading up to the 2020 election. The company website and Facebook pages were taken down, but third party sites quote the company philosophy:
THE WINEMA WAY Grounded in Christian Values, Winema Electric is lighting the future of the electrical industry, by providing a higher standard of service that exceeds expectations.
OUR CORE VALUES Our way is to create an environment that changes the way work is done; a place where employees become family; where we empower one another to succeed in every aspect of life; building enthusiasm in our company so everyone goes home safe with love and pride for their work; creating lifelong relationships with those we serve, our team, our customers, and our community; inspiring one another to live every day with the basic Christian value of always doing the right thing."
Jared was contacted by the media, and he says his parting words were just a friendly joke made as a "free-thinking American and a follower of Jesus Christ." He told the Portland newspaper, "I understand there is a vulgar meaning to 'Let's go Brandon,'" but Biden "seems like he's a cordial guy. There's no animosity or anything like that. It was merely an innocent jest to also express my God-given right to express my frustrations in a joking manner."
The sign-off by Schmeck did not appear to be a political statement. Afterwards, when pressed to explain himself by a reporter, Schmeck put a rational justification for it, but I suspect it was him scrambling to make sense of what he had blurted. Biden had been pleasantly engaged with his young children, and he ended with coded "Fuck Joe Biden."
Conservative media are loving this. They suggest that Joe Biden is unaware that "Let's go, Brandon," is code for "Fuck Joe Biden." Of course, Biden knows what the phrase means. Biden was staying on task on Christmas Eve, doing happy-talk.
The blurted comment exposes the toxic effect of the marriage of Christian evangelism and the GOP under Trump. Trump normalized incivility and transgressive rule-breaking. It changed unconscious, automatic behavior of people in the religious/political tribe. "Let's go, Brandon" was a companion phrase to "Merry Christmas," not a reversal of it.
The coarsening of behavior is troubling to some Christian writers and ministers who worry Christ is getting the short end of this marriage. Christians get the federal judges they think they want, but they are substituting Christian virtues with warrior virtues. Empathy is for losers. The Golden Rule is for the meek, and the meek are wimps. It shows up as commonplace coded insults. Donald Trump, Jr. urged the faithful understand and embrace the new Christian approach. We need to understand the limitations of Christianity, he told the cheering crowd at Turning Point USA. He said Christian Republicans are hobbled by too much civility. "We’ve been playing tee-ball for half a century, while they’re playing hardball and cheating, right?”
I don't think Jared Schmeck meant to be uncivil. He is in a faith community and political mind-set where saying "Fuck Joe Biden" in code is a pleasantry.
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