Nicholas Kamm/AFP
- President Joe Biden launched his 2024 re-election campaign on Tuesday.
- His campaign is selling $32 T-shirts that include the "Dark Brandon" meme on them.
- Biden-world first embraced the meme — parody of the far-right "Dark MAGA" — last summer.
President Joe Biden's re-election campaign is selling a $32 T-shirt that incorporates the "Dark Brandon" meme.
On Tuesday morning, Biden officially announced his intention to run for re-election in 2024 with a 3-minute video.
—Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 25, 2023
Among the items available for purchase on Biden's campaign website are a $32 "Dark T-shirt" that includes an image of Biden with red laser eyes, surrounded by the number "2024." The shirt is “best worn while vanquishing malarkey,” according to Biden’s campaign website.
Biden for President
The meme was first embraced by Biden-world in August, after Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act.
"Dark Brandon is crushing it," wrote White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates on Twitter at the time.
—Andrew Bates (@AndrewJBates46) August 7, 2022
The meme, a mostly-ironic blending of the anti-Biden "Let's Go Brandon" slogan with the "Dark MAGA" aesthetic, imagines a more ruthless version of Biden.
It first emerged online as a jokey response to those who used "Dark MAGA" memes — a group that imagines a scenario in which an authoritarian, more radical version of Trump returns to the White House bent on revenge.
Since then, the Dark MAGA meme has largely fallen out of fashion on the right — possibly owing to the proliferation of "Dark Brandon."