MONDAY, OCTOBER 25 , 2021. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
history.”
In an interview after that
speech, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-
Mich.), a centrist who represents
the area, said the protesters in her
district are clearly energized.
While she supports freedom of
speech, she added, she found the
use of crude language distasteful.
“What I think was really disap-
pointing was the profanity and
the sort of really over-the-top,
heinous things that people wrote
on signs, just blocks from a
school,” Slotkin said. “And I think
it reflects that there is a strain in
the country right now of people
who are angry and they’ve sort oflost their decency and civility.”
Less than two weeks later, dur-
ing a visit to a child development
center in Hartford, Conn., Biden
again found himself dogged by
signs sporting the four-letter an-
ti-Biden slogan.
“The protesters outside the
child care center today had a
giant ‘F—k Joe Biden’ sign and
were chanting the same thing
loud enough to make sure all the
children could hear it,” tweeted
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) af-
ter the president’s trip. “Just
heartbreaking for kids to see how
crude and uncivil some of our
discourse has become.”And as Virginia gubernatorial
nominee Glenn Youngkin cam-
paigned in Culpeper t his month,
the crowd several times attempt-
ed to start a “Let’s go Brandon!”
chant. After Youngkin jokingly
referred to Biden as the “uncle” of
his opponent, Democratic nomi-
nee Terry McAuliffe, one attendee
called out, “Brandon! Let’s go
Brandon!”
Hours later, at a R ichmond-ar-
ea rally organized by conservative
radio talk show host and former
Trump state campaign chair John
Fredericks, multiple speakers led
the crowd of a few hundred in the
chant.Among them was Arizona state
Rep. Mark Finchem, a candidate
for Arizona secretary of state who
has been endorsed by Trump.
Finchem knew how to elicit loud
cheers after a 10-minute speech
about his campaign to overturn
Biden’s win in his state, urging,
“So with that, I’d like to have a one
round — if you don’t mind it, just
humor me — of ‘Let’s go Bran-
don!’ ”
Some who have erected anti-
Biden signs, especially vulgar
ones, have found themselves in
conflict with local officials, in-
cluding one woman in New Jersey
who was asked to take downseveral banners because they vio-
lated a local anti-obscenity ordi-
nance. She has said she plans to
fight a judge’s order in court.
That hasn’t deterred Trump
supporters. As reporters left a
Biden event in Elk Grove Village,
Ill., e arlier this month, an anti-
Biden protester could be heard
speaking over a loudspeaker
nearby, booming, “We’re all wav-
ing at you to let you know how
much you suck.”
[email protected]Carissa Wolf reported from Boise.
Sean Sullivan, Matt Viser and Dave
Weigel contributed to this report.ately asked his son to help him
find his own anti-Biden flag on-
line after he saw one waving from
the back of a truck — immigration
is also a motivating issue. He said
he wants to see Biden clamp
down on the number of people
crossing the border, adding,
“Where the hell are we going to
put the people who are already
here?”
But the signs often appear to be
as much a manifestation of the
general rage against the system
that helped fuel Trump’s ascent as
a specific indictment of the cur-
rent president.
“The psychological dynamic
that led to the rise of Trump is
happening again — this sense
that you’re losing your country
and it’s being led by an individual
without the cognitive capacity to
run a fast-food joint,” said Cliff
Sims, who served in a senior role
in the Trump administration.
“The anger is less about Joe Biden
individually and more about the
state of the country that he is
presiding over. He’s an avatar —
he’s like the symbol of the decline
of America.”
Administration officials
sought to downplay the phenom-
enon, and at least one claimed to
be unfamiliar with the “Let’s go
Brandon” chant or its cruder
cousin, though they are now
chanted everywhere from foot-
ball stadiums to concert arenas to
local bars.
“I had never heard of that
chant until you explained it to
me,” said White House spokes-
man Andrew Bates. Referring to
an anonymous message board
known for promoting online ex-
tremism, he added, “I guess I’m
not spending enough time on
8chan or whatever.”
The signs have followed Biden
nearly everywhere, held aloft by
protesters. The president ad-
dressed them obliquely when he
visited Howell, Mich., earlier this
month.
“ They said it was time to build
an economy that looks out from
Scranton, Pennsylvania — where
I grew up as a kid — instead of
looking down from Wall Street,”
Biden said in his speech that day,
then quickly added, “notwith-
standing some of the signs that I
saw — that’s why 81 million Amer-
icans voted for me, the largest
number of votes in American
‘We’re so tribal, everybody now is ... angry’
CARISSA WOLF FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Dick’s signs air his complaints without profanity, but plenty of that has been directed at Biden from supporters of former president Donald Trump.WE BRING THE
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