The backstory starts in early September 2021, when crowds at college football games across the Southern United States began chanting "Fuck Joe Biden" during games1. The trend first showed up at Texas A&M, Coastal Carolina, and Virginia Tech, then spread to other schools including Ole Miss and Auburn over the following weekends1. TikToker @oldrowswig compiled footage of the chants at games, concerts, and bars on September 5th, racking up over 232,000 views4. The chants were linked to frustration over the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan and vaccine mandates1.

The anti-Biden chanting wasn't limited to college stadiums. Staind frontman Aaron Lewis led a "Fuck Joe Biden" chant at a reunion concert in Biden's hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, while wearing an "I Could Shit a Better President" shirt2. Donald Trump hosted a pay-per-view boxing event on September 11th where the crowd chanted both "We want Trump" and "Fuck Joe Biden"4.

On October 2, 2021, Brandon Brown won his first NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama5. During a post-race interview on the NBC Sports broadcast, reporter Kelli Stavast acknowledged the crowd noise by saying, "You can hear the chants from the crowd, 'Let's go, Brandon!'" The crowd was clearly chanting "Fuck Joe Biden"4. Whether Stavast genuinely misheard the chant or deliberately reframed it on live TV has never been clarified. An Associated Press reporter noted the chant was "at first difficult to make out"5. A clip of the moment hit Twitter the same day, posted by @TrumpJew2, and pulled in over 3.8 million views, 28,000 likes, and 10,000 retweets within four days4.

The phrase jumped from internet joke to full-blown political slogan faster than most memes manage. Linguist John McWhorter analyzed it in The Atlantic, comparing the use of "Brandon" to a hlonipha, a linguistic substitution for a forbidden word, similar to how "SNAFU" sanitizes its profane origin5. He called the Let's Go Brandon phenomenon "simply fascinating" and "a wild, woolly kink in the intersection of language, politics, wit, and creativity"5.

Not everyone found it charming. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial board wrote that the chant "reveals a moral bankruptcy of those who chant it even in church"5. Marc Thiessen, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, initially disliked it but concluded it was "a perfectly harmless and humorous way for Americans to express their frustration at a flailing, and failing, presidency"5.

NASCAR president Steve Phelps publicly rejected any association with the slogan on November 5, 2021, saying the organization didn't want to be tied to politics on either side5. The man at the center of it all, Brandon Brown, had complicated feelings. The phrase overshadowed his Talladega win and scared off corporate sponsors wary of political controversy5. His Brandonbilt Motorsports team struggled to find sponsorship as companies didn't want the association5. Brown, a Republican, said he had "zero desire to be involved in politics" and wished the phrase could be used positively5. He eventually wrote a Newsweek op-ed stating he wouldn't endorse anyone but also wouldn't stay silent on issues that mattered to him5.

Donald Trump Jr. used the meme's momentum to argue media bias, telling The Daily Caller that "the media can't run cover for him anymore" and citing Afghanistan, border issues, and inflation as reasons behind public frustration with Biden1.