The Candice Malcolm Show - October 19, 2021


The “Let’s go Brandon” meme comes to Canada

Topics
let's go
Hosted by
Candice Malcolm
Mentioned
Brandon Brown F. Joe Biden Justin Trudeau F Joe Biden Donald Trump Jr. Sheila Gunn-Reed Danielle Smith William Macbeth Loza Alexander Tristan Hopper Andrew Lawton Bill Buick Lil Nas Marciano Drake
The legacy media misleads Canadians about a teen dying of COVID-19 Bringing common sense back to politics (Ft. Aaron Gunn)

Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

186.08

Word count

2,872

Sentence count

182

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Let's Go Brandon meme comes to Canada? Or is it fake news? We'll break it all down in today's episode of The Candice Malcolm Show. In this episode, we discuss the origins of the meme, where it came from, and what it means in the context of the current cultural moment we're living in.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.300 The let's go Brandon meme comes to Canada or is it fake news? We'll break it all down.
00:00:04.580 I'm Candice Malcolm and this is the Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:11.620 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in to the Candice Malcolm Show today.
00:00:14.860 Thank you for supporting the podcast and listening to it.
00:00:17.840 And thank you to everyone who tuned in last night.
00:00:19.800 We did a live stream, a live event covering the Alberta municipal elections
00:00:24.020 and that really important question on equalization,
00:00:26.560 on the future of Alberta's sort of role in fiscal federalism
00:00:30.600 and role in confederation more broadly.
00:00:33.260 One of the reasons that True North exists
00:00:35.520 and one of the reasons I think we've been so successful over the past few years
00:00:38.660 as a voice, an independent media voice,
00:00:41.380 is that we tell the other side of the story,
00:00:43.060 we cover issues that the legacy media ignores.
00:00:45.960 And I think that this is a great example of it.
00:00:47.980 We hosted our live stream, we interviewed some great guests from across Alberta
00:00:52.160 to talk about the different aspects of the night
00:00:54.460 and the various races that were going on.
00:00:57.280 And what we heard over and over again from our guests,
00:01:00.560 from Danielle Smith, Sheila Gunn-Reed, Vitor Marciano, and Dr. Bill Buick,
00:01:06.340 they all sort of reiterated this idea
00:01:08.560 that the media in Alberta was hardly covering this election,
00:01:12.020 that the mayoral race in Edmonton wasn't getting a lot of attention,
00:01:15.160 the one in Calgary was.
00:01:16.380 But the question of the referendum, there was hardly any campaigning,
00:01:19.820 there was basically no coverage outside of Alberta.
00:01:23.020 For those of us living outside of Alberta, we barely heard anything about it.
00:01:27.340 And, you know, given how important it is,
00:01:29.760 the consequential nature of a vote like this
00:01:32.240 and really in Alberta's role in the future of Canada,
00:01:35.260 it's a little surprising that the legacy media just barely covered it,
00:01:38.700 didn't pay much attention to it, hardly even a headline.
00:01:41.960 And again, I think that's why we have found our nation,
00:01:44.040 found some success in this challenging media space in Canada.
00:01:47.700 And so I really encourage you to go take a look.
00:01:50.160 We had a lot of fun and it was always a great time,
00:01:53.000 joined by my colleagues Andrew Lawton and my colleague William McBeth,
00:01:57.400 who's usually a behind-the-scenes guy, but he's based out in Calgary
00:02:00.640 and he joined us for the sort of role of decision desk
00:02:04.680 and breaking down the answer.
00:02:06.000 So that was a lot of fun.
00:02:07.740 And I will admit, one of the things that I kept hearing about
00:02:10.060 in the chat, in the comment section, both on Facebook and YouTube,
00:02:14.180 people wanted to talk about the Let's Go Brandon meme.
00:02:16.320 I kept seeing that Let's Go Brandon pop up in the chat
00:02:19.420 and I thought it would be amusing and fun to spend a show talking about this meme,
00:02:24.580 what it means, where it came from,
00:02:26.340 sort of what it means in terms of the cultural moment that we're living in.
00:02:29.800 And yes, there's a little bit of a Canadian aspect
00:02:32.220 that we will get to later in this show.
00:02:34.180 So, you know, I'm a creature of the internet.
00:02:36.660 I'm a millennial.
00:02:37.360 I like to know what's going on online.
00:02:39.400 So whenever there's one of these memes that are sort of going viral,
00:02:42.280 I like to quickly understand what it's all about.
00:02:44.700 And I'm surprised that many people don't know what it means
00:02:47.020 or what we're talking about.
00:02:48.860 I was talking to a friend yesterday and I mentioned Let's Go Brandon
00:02:51.920 and they didn't know what I was talking about.
00:02:53.380 They had seen it here or there on social media,
00:02:55.240 but they didn't know what it meant.
00:02:56.520 And I was a little surprised that someone didn't know what it meant.
00:03:00.100 So I thought, hey, let's break it down on the show.
00:03:03.100 Let's go through it.
00:03:03.800 So where did this come from?
00:03:05.080 What is Let's Go Brandon?
00:03:06.420 What is this meme all about?
00:03:07.900 So it started back on October 9th,
00:03:10.040 which was Thanksgiving long weekend up here in Canada.
00:03:12.980 And down in the States, they also had a long weekend.
00:03:15.480 It used to be called Columbus Day.
00:03:16.440 Now it's called something else.
00:03:17.780 But after the Xfinity NASCAR race at the Talladega Super Speedway,
00:03:22.360 Brandon Brown, the NASCAR driver, had just won his first race of the season.
00:03:25.980 And he was being interviewed live on national television, on NBC Sports,
00:03:29.980 by a reporter in front of a large crowd of fans who were all chanting something.
00:03:35.440 I'll just say they were chanting something.
00:03:37.340 And so the interview sort of went viral.
00:03:39.240 It's really amusing.
00:03:39.840 I'm going to play it for you because it is glorious.
00:03:42.860 It's hilarious.
00:03:43.680 But the crowd is very clearly chanting something about Joe Biden.
00:03:47.620 And for whatever reason, the NBC Sports host plays this clip of the crowd saying,
00:03:52.960 you know, Brandon, you just won this race.
00:03:54.660 And now you can hear this crowd cheering for you.
00:03:57.440 And it's pretty clear that they're not cheering for him.
00:04:00.520 But she says they're saying, let's go, Brandon.
00:04:04.560 I'll leave it up to you to determine what you think it is that they're chanting.
00:04:09.080 So let's play this clip.
00:04:10.300 Thank you to all of our partners.
00:04:13.280 Oh, my God.
00:04:14.000 It's just such an unbelievable moment.
00:04:17.680 Brandon, you also told me, as you can hear the chants from the crowd, let's go, Brandon.
00:04:25.240 Brandon, you told me you were going to kind of hang back those first two stages and just
00:04:29.640 watch and learn.
00:04:31.020 What did you learn that helped you there in those closing laps?
00:04:33.740 Oh, my God.
00:04:34.560 It was learning how each line didn't stay to one.
00:04:40.140 And everything shifted top to bottom so much.
00:04:42.840 So the clip went viral.
00:04:43.820 And it went even more viral when Donald J. Trump Jr. shared this tweet.
00:04:49.100 He posted it on Twitter with the caption.
00:04:51.580 I'm pretty sure they're not chanting, let's go, Brandon, as the NBC reporter is telling
00:04:56.580 us, what do you hear?
00:04:58.080 And then he has the hashtag FJB, which stands for, I won't say it, but F Joe Biden.
00:05:04.440 And so you can see that clip got 4 million views just there on Twitter.
00:05:09.840 So what is the origin of this chant?
00:05:11.800 Why were they chanting it at the NASCAR stadium, the Talladega Super Speedway?
00:05:16.520 Well, apparently these chants have been heard at college football games throughout the season
00:05:21.180 for the entire school year since September 4th.
00:05:23.720 According to Old Rose Sports, the chants were first heard at four college football games
00:05:28.560 in the American South on the weekend of September 4th.
00:05:32.140 That that was in Alabama, Virginia, and South Carolina.
00:05:35.920 And now they're basically a feature at college football games across the country.
00:05:40.460 According to Joe Biden's presidential Wikipedia page, it says this with approval ratings falling
00:05:46.620 in September 2021, chants of F Joe Biden were heard at several college football games in
00:05:51.620 the South before spreading to other NCAA stadiums, and then even more sporting events throughout
00:05:56.400 the country.
00:05:57.320 Chants were heard at the 2021 Ryder Cup, a boxing match, the Talladega Super Speedway
00:06:01.660 Spark 300, September 11th MLB matchup between the Yankees and the Mets, and NFL games between
00:06:07.940 the Jets and New Jersey.
00:06:09.640 So the fact that it's made its way to Joe Biden's official Wikipedia page is quite something.
00:06:14.980 And now we just hear this chant everywhere.
00:06:18.300 It was at a New York Yankees game, New York Rangers hockey game.
00:06:21.980 The LA Dodgers were playing the San Francisco Giants in a playoff game, and they were chanting
00:06:26.960 it out in California.
00:06:28.840 It was heard at a couple of different concerts.
00:06:31.400 It was heard at a congressional baseball game played in Washington, D.C., get this, where Joe
00:06:36.640 Biden was actually in attendance.
00:06:38.760 And it even broke out at a food court where a bunch of women were eating lunch or dinner 1.00
00:06:44.600 at a food court.
00:06:45.420 And they broke out in this FJB chant.
00:06:49.600 And now the chant has even gone global.
00:06:52.600 On October 11th, protesters were in Rome, Italy, and they started chanting F Joe Biden
00:06:58.400 outside the U.S. Embassy.
00:06:59.960 The protests were in response to mandatory vaccines in that country.
00:07:04.980 And there was also another chant in Europe, out in Germany, where the Let's Go Brandon chant
00:07:10.140 or F Joe Biden chant could be heard by a group of protesters in Germany.
00:07:14.900 And it gets even more amusing than that.
00:07:16.680 The Let's Go Brandon or the F Joe Biden meme chant has made its way into popular culture,
00:07:22.380 into music.
00:07:23.360 The number one song right now on the Apple iTunes music list in the rap category is a song called
00:07:29.980 Let's Go Brandon by Loza Alexander.
00:07:32.080 It is number one.
00:07:34.220 It beat out Drake and Lil Nas X on iTunes.
00:07:37.840 And it is number two overall in all categories.
00:07:40.700 The song's gone viral on TikTok, on Instagram, and it's got millions of views already on YouTube.
00:07:46.220 So I'm going to play a bit of this song.
00:07:48.660 And I will warn you, it is a little bit graphic.
00:07:51.080 I won't bleep out the F part.
00:07:52.860 But you get the idea that this song, he's saying, we know what they're really saying.
00:07:57.900 When you say Let's Go Brandon, we know what they're really saying.
00:08:00.020 And then he goes into quite the tirade against Joe Biden, where he calls him a communist
00:08:04.540 and basically says that the whole country has turned against him.
00:08:08.580 So let's play a bit of that.
00:08:30.020 And I say that this Let's Go Brandon meme has come to Canada because there was a memo circulating
00:08:44.600 on social media.
00:08:45.580 Again, it was getting millions of views on Twitter and on different social media sites,
00:08:50.380 alleging to say that the Canadian government was banning any use of the euphemism Let's Go
00:08:56.160 Brandon, the anti-Joe Biden euphemism Let's Go Brandon, that if any civil servant was found
00:09:01.380 to be using this meme, they would be fired immediately.
00:09:04.620 So this is the document.
00:09:06.700 And let me just say, I saw it on Twitter.
00:09:08.780 And we at True North held off on reporting on this because it just didn't seem real.
00:09:13.560 I've worked in the Canadian government before.
00:09:15.460 And there were a few things that were a little bit off.
00:09:18.800 First things, it wasn't a screenshot.
00:09:21.240 It wasn't a file that had been documented.
00:09:24.060 It was a printed piece of paper, which is just a little bit odd for a memo to come out
00:09:28.260 in that form.
00:09:30.000 Also, the way that the top of the paper is indented didn't look authentic.
00:09:34.460 The way that the date was written was a little bit off.
00:09:36.740 So there were some weird formatting issues that didn't make this look real, which is
00:09:40.040 why we at True North didn't run with it right away.
00:09:43.180 But I will just say the reason that this thing did go viral is because, let's be honest,
00:09:47.880 you could imagine the Canadian government putting something like this out.
00:09:50.860 This would be like par for the course for the Trudeau government to ban a meme and to
00:09:55.820 say that anyone sharing a meme is racist, violent, alt-right, whatever.
00:10:02.220 And so it was believable, which is, I think, why it did go viral and it got reported in
00:10:07.260 a few different outlets in the U.S.
00:10:09.400 So it says this,
00:10:10.820 Good day.
00:10:11.340 This is a formal notification that all government correspondents must be professional in nature
00:10:15.260 and approved by department heads.
00:10:17.040 When applicable, all correspondents must be vetted by the PMO for framing and message
00:10:21.860 prior to public disclosure or internal distribution.
00:10:26.220 And it goes on to say that the use of colloquialism and sayings with intended double meaning or
00:10:30.580 offense are strictly prohibited in all means of correspondence communication, specifically
00:10:35.180 the use of the wording, let's go, Brandon, and any variation thereof under any circumstances
00:10:40.960 is banned by the Canadian Public Service.
00:10:43.540 Please contact your department head for the applicable writing references.
00:10:47.720 We've been informed that this will be zero tolerance issue within the management structure.
00:10:52.660 This position is fully supported by the leadership of PSEC.
00:10:55.560 So you can tell right there that this isn't even written in proper grammatical English,
00:10:59.700 which again was a bit of a red flag.
00:11:01.500 And why we did think it was fake?
00:11:03.520 Well, according to the National Post, they have confirmed that the memo is fake.
00:11:08.640 It says thousands have shared an image of a memo that appeared to be threatening Canadian
00:11:12.700 civil servants with immediate dismissal if they use let's go, Brandon.
00:11:16.860 According to Tristan Hopper over the National Post, he says the federal government said it
00:11:20.460 had nothing to do with a memo shared widely across the internet purporting to order a ban
00:11:24.640 against usage of the term let's go, Brandon, by Canadian civil servants.
00:11:28.840 Let's go, Brandon is used widely among conservative circles as a euphemism for F. Joe Biden in reference
00:11:35.180 to U.S. President Joe Biden that originated two weeks ago when NASCAR driver Brandon Brown
00:11:39.940 was being interviewed live on camera in front of a crowd chanting F. Joe Biden when the
00:11:44.840 NBC anchor misinterpreted it as a supportive chant of let's go, Brandon.
00:11:49.660 Over the weekend, thousands of people shared an image online of a paper memo that appeared
00:11:53.360 to be threatening Canadian civil servants with immediate dismissal if they use let's go,
00:11:57.840 Brandon in internal communications.
00:11:59.680 And then he just goes on to dismiss it saying by Sunday night, the memo was making headlines
00:12:04.720 across U.S. conservative media outlets.
00:12:07.000 Canada threatens to fire federal employees using let's go, Brandon, and correspondence reads
00:12:11.540 one typical headline in the Daily Wire, one of the United States most trafficked right-wing
00:12:15.940 news outlets.
00:12:16.880 The image appears to have originated from a small anonymous Twitter account claimed to be
00:12:21.400 based in Richmond, Virginia.
00:12:23.400 And the account said that the memo came to me in a DM from a Canadian friend.
00:12:27.580 I wasn't looking for any more followers or likes.
00:12:30.260 I have known this Canadian friend for quite some time and they have always sent me the
00:12:34.720 truth, he wrote.
00:12:36.040 And he continues by saying, Canadian government departments are not known to promise immediate
00:12:41.880 dismissal without recourse or label union representation.
00:12:45.480 A policy that the memo claims has received support from union leaders.
00:12:50.100 PSAC, the public service union mentioned in the memo, is currently a strong opponent of
00:12:55.380 policies to punish or dismiss civil servants who refuse to be vaccinated.
00:12:59.520 So the whole thing doesn't add up.
00:13:01.660 And here you go.
00:13:02.520 According to the National Post, they say it is just not so.
00:13:06.760 It's just not real.
00:13:08.100 It is fake news.
00:13:09.540 But I think, again, the reason that so many people shared it, the reason why U.S.
00:13:13.000 outlets reported on it is because it's something that could be true.
00:13:16.160 It's within the realm of possibility, given the insanity of the Trudeau government and the
00:13:20.980 way that they push their heavy-handed totalitarian measures.
00:13:24.740 And again, I think that this is why the whole Let's Go Brandon meme is taking off.
00:13:30.020 You know, the media can sort of write it off as a fringe right-wing phenomenon.
00:13:34.120 But again, that doesn't really explain why it is the number one hip-hop song in America
00:13:37.720 right now.
00:13:38.300 Why it is being chanted at stadiums and concerts across the U.S., including in very staunch blue
00:13:45.420 areas.
00:13:45.900 It's staunch pro-Democrat areas like California and New York.
00:13:50.020 I think that what is happening in our culture is that we are hitting a tipping point.
00:13:54.200 People are just so sick of the heavy-handed COVID mandates, the heavy-handed rules, the
00:13:59.180 restrictions, the ongoing, never-ending lockdowns, rules, masks, vaccines, all of it.
00:14:05.480 People are just tired of it.
00:14:06.440 They want to live their lives.
00:14:07.560 They want their freedom back.
00:14:09.000 And they are just sick of heavy-handed measures.
00:14:11.340 So that is why they're saying F you to Joe Biden.
00:14:13.680 And that is why a fake memo of Justin Trudeau banning the use of the meme is so realistic
00:14:19.180 and so believable because people just, they've had enough.
00:14:23.360 And this is a way to fight back.
00:14:25.760 You know, this isn't going to the ballot box and voting them out because we can't do that
00:14:29.500 right now.
00:14:30.120 But what it is, is the culture, the art, the internet culture, fighting back, pushing
00:14:35.440 back, making a mockery of the culture of the media, of the sitting president saying enough
00:14:41.600 is enough.
00:14:42.240 And this is one of the best tools that we have to push back.
00:14:45.040 And it's good to see when the culture is pushing back against the dominant left-wing
00:14:50.820 norms because we all think that the culture is dominated by the sort of woke left-wing
00:14:55.420 culture.
00:14:55.840 But it isn't.
00:14:56.600 It isn't.
00:14:56.980 This shows that there is pushback from the sort of common sense side of the world pushing
00:15:02.660 against the woke left totalitarian mindset that we see in so many left-wing leaders and
00:15:09.340 politicians and cultural figures. 0.97
00:15:11.600 So again, it's silly. 0.90
00:15:13.240 It's lighthearted. 0.58
00:15:13.800 It's a meme.
00:15:14.460 But again, it's an important cultural moment showing how so many people have had enough
00:15:18.780 and this is how they are pushing back against the totalitarian dominant left-wing ideology.
00:15:24.240 I'm Candace Malcolm and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.