Topic: Media Research Center
Mysterious Media Research Center sports blogger Jay Maxson whined about "coarsening the culture" in a Nov. 3 post:
Between social justice protests, sordid Super Bowl halftime “entertainment” and vulgar language, the National Football League just can’t stay out of its own way. Last week’s alternate Monday Night Football broadcast on ESPN2 featured an F-bomb by guest Marshawn Lynch, and co-host Peyton Manning apologized for the off-color language.
Maxson might have been taken seriously if his MRC co-workers hadn't been spending the previous couple of weeks endorsing a euphemism for a vulgar insult if President Biden.
Despite its history of performative prudity when applied to anything non-conservatives do, the MRC has been sliding toward embracing vulgarity. Earlier this year, it cheered right-wing pocaster Joe Rogan calling CNN's Brian Stelter a "motherfucker," mostly for not being a right-wing shill. So when "Let's Go Brandon" briefly became a thing in October after a reporter misheard a crowd at a NASCAR race chanting "Fuck You, Biden," An Oct. 19 post by Gabriel Hays rushed to embrace a song based on the vulgarity:
A rap song titled “Let’s Go Brandon!” has become so popular that it is now trending at number one on Apple Music’s Hip Hop charts.
PopVortex.com’s record of what's trending on Apple Music shows that the song is currently in the number one slot on the streaming giant’s Hip Hop charts and it’s number two in iTunes “top 100 pop songs” chart, only behind Adele’s “Easy On Me.”
For those who haven’t kept up with the many interesting and vital nuances of political humor these days, “Let’s Go Brandon” is not actually a song in support of people named Brandon everywhere, it’s actually a song in protest of President Joe Biden.
Yes. “Let’s Go Brandon” is actually a euphemism for the “F**k Joe Biden,” a phrase which has become a popular crowd chant at college sports games and concerts across the nation.
Thank a fake news journalist for changing it to the more family-friendly and acceptable Let’s Go Brandon.
[...]
Yeah it’s pretty cathartic stuff, considering how the Biden administration has abused the country since he got into office. The fact that it’s Apple’s number two overall song means that many people are thinking “Let’s Go Brandon” right now.
Nicholas Fondacaro went the whataboutism route in an Oct. 24 post:
In an amazingly tone-deaf and hypocritical Saturday article for the Washington Post, White House reporter Ashley Parker and reporter Carissa Wolf bemoaned how, across the country, President “Biden’s critics hurl increasingly vulgar taunts.” This, after the paper, spent four years actively promoting such comments against former President Trump. They even took issue with the non-vulgar “Let’s go Brandon” chant gaining in popularity.
A simple search of the Post’s website for the terms “f---” and “Trump” together gets you a list of articles exposing the prevailing feeling at the newspaper toward the former President. Including: “Former Mexican president says he will not pay for Donald Trump’s ‘f—— wall,’” “She put an obscene anti-Trump message on her truck and was arrested. Now she might sue,’” and “YG’s political message is as blunt as can be.”
Despite this history of promoting anti-Trump vulgarity, Parker and Wolf complained about how Biden was in Scranton, Pennsylvania and was “greeted at the corner of Biden Street by a woman holding a handmade ‘F--- Joe Biden’ sign, with an American flag as the vowel in the offending word.”
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The message was clear: the Washington Post wanted to be the arbiter of who could use such language against a president and which one was the worthy target.
As if that's not what the MRC wants. Not that Fondacaro will ever admit that, of course.
The snowflakes who claimed to be outraged that Rep. Rashida Tlaib called form impeaching the "motherfucker" Trump in 2019 actually had the temerity to bash critics of the right-wing embrace of "Let's Go Brandon" as "snowflakes," as Kristine Marsh did in the headline of her Oct. 26 post, hypocritically using Tlaib as an example:
You just have to laugh at CNN’s fake outrage. Where was CNN when a “sitting congress[wo]man” Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat, shouted, “We're gonna impeach the motherf***er!,” in reference to then-President Trump. Oh right, they didn’t care. Actually, CNN tried to dismiss the controversy.
You mean like how the MRC is trying to dismiss the "Let's Go Brandon" controversy?
Meanwhile, the MRC continued to get off on "Let's Go Brandon" set to music:
- Autumn Johnson hyped claims that the original "Let's Go Brandon" song was "banned" on YouTube and Instagram.
- Tierin-Rose Mandelburg repeated the "censorship" claim in an Oct. 27 post, adding, "It’s a small win for conservatives. Even with censorship, the success of these songs provides a bit of hope."
- Hays returned to gush that "four different “Let’s Go Brandon” rap songs are on the top of the iTunes chart," adding; "So, the music scene is being dominated by songs that are a euphemism for “F**k Joe Biden!” How's that for a hint as to how the Biden administration is doing?"
Fondacaro came to the defense of a Southwest Airlines pilot who signed off to passenger by saying "Let's Go Brandon," as heard by an Associated Press reporter on the flight, which he claimed "led to the AP reporter trying to break into the cockpit to confront him and CNN employees on Twitter comparing him to ISIS and baselessly accusing him of being a drug addict, all in an attempt to get him fired.He went on to assert that the story was only about "impotent rage and the story really only angering radical liberals" and fretted about "all the smears and possible libel of the pilot."
Tim Graham discussed the Southwest incident in his Nov. 1 podcast, where he pretended to be bothered by it but it didn't matter because it was "lefties" objecting:
I've mentioned that I don't love the "F the president" slogans. Cloaking it non-swear words is better. Obviously this is a divisive political message, it's not exactly something you expect on an airline flight. ... But the lefties wanted the pilot fired -- fired! -- for this alleged use of "Let's Go Brandon." I think we all know they would adore the pilot sharing their divisive political messages.
[...]
It's this whole idea that somebody making a political message as either a quick political mesage or a joke or a little bit of trolling is somehow a violation that you need to call the FAA -- don't you think the FAA would be llike, um, I think we have better things to do than take these calls. And of course, this is -- as Nick Fondacaro noted, this is the network [CNN] at tried to use "spithole" -- yes -- about 2,000 times in about 24 hours because the Democrats said Trump said it in a closed meeting.
Yes, the MRC was outraged about that too, and Graham counted them all. Yet it's totally cool with "Let's Go Brandon."
Dan Gainor -- an MRC employee who is rarely allowed to write at an MRC website -- downplayed the vulgarity in a Nov. 2 article for Fox News:
"Let’s go, Brandon." Hardly, "Give me liberty or give me death." Or even, "Remember the Alamo!"
It’s a simple slogan designed to mock two of the biggest enemies ordinary Americans have — the Biden administration and the liberal media.
[...]
The mere mention of Trump drove liberal journalists off the deep end. They ordinarily live in a world where conservative thought is all-but forbidden. Academia, journalism, government and, increasingly, major businesses forbid anything other than leftist doctrine.
"Let’s go, Brandon," was a reminder that there’s more to the world than just their tiny bubble. And all it took to break through were three little words."Let’s go, Brandon."
Kristine Marsh hurled the usual whataboutism on CNN in a Nov. 2 post:
CNN has no problem with vulgarities, crude gestures or violent threats directed at Republicans. But they will be outraged over a kid in a MAGA hat smirking or a crude joke being made about Joe Biden.
On New Day this morning, CNN’s lack of self-awareness was obvious as they complained that political discourse in this country had reached “toxic levels” because of the 'Let's Go Brandon' joke. On screen it read, "Juvenile rhetoric: Liberals, conservatives fight over 'Let's Go Brandon' insults." No one seemed to remember “comedian” Kathy Griffin posing with a bloodied, severed head of President Trump, or singer Madonna telling a feminist crowd in Washington D.C. that she wanted to “blow up the White House” right after Trump’s inauguration. But “F-Joe Biden” was a new low in our culture, according to co-hosts John Berman and Brianna Keilar.
Marsh didn't mention her employer's hypocrisy.
