Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a growing rival to President Joe Biden’s administration.
According to reports, DeSantis has his eyes on the 2024 Republican presidential nomination — and he’s taking a page from the playbook of former President Donald Trump.
Nicknames.
DeSantis played on the “Let’s Go Brandon” chant that has left Democratic insiders and liberal activists fuming when addressing supporters Wednesday.
“If you look at all the things that are going on, you see Big Tech, you see the corporate media — although they weren’t too happy with Virginia last night,” DeSantis told the crowd.
“If you look at that, if you look at what’s going on with some of the big corporations with their woke agenda.”
“When you look at the Biden… when you look at the Brandon administration,” DeSantis said to the crowd, which drowned him out in cheers and applause.
They started chanting, “Let’s Go Brandon,” shortly after.
The line has become conservative code for the phrase, “F*** Joe Biden,” and has quickly become a not-so-secret signal that someone is a conservative.
The phrase originated at an Oct. 2 NASCAR race at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama. Brandon Brown, a 28-year-old driver, had won his first Xfinity Series and was being interviewed by an NBC Sports reporter. The crowd behind him was chanting something at first difficult to make out. The reporter suggested they were chanting “Let’s go, Brandon” to cheer the driver.
But it became increasingly clear they were saying: “F*** Joe Biden.”
NASCAR and NBC have since taken steps to limit “ambient crowd noise” during interviews, but it was too late. The phrase already had taken off.
Veteran GOP ad maker Jim Innocenzi said the code was “hilarious.”
“Unless you are living in a cave, you know what it means,” he said. “But it’s done with a little bit of a class. And if you object and are taking it too seriously, go away.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.