The Devil, the Wokes, and Let’s Go Brandon

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Over the weekend, an Associated Press reporter was on a Southwest flight from Houston to Albuquerque, New Mexico. As they were landing, the pilot said, over the Intercom, "Let's go, Brandon." Actually, what the pilot appears to have said is, "Let's go Braves." The audio that was captured was truncated. And it sounds very much like the pilot was saying, "Let's go Braves." Now, the audio is recorded. Southwest is launching an investigation. Even the New York Times is doing a story on this pilot. They are out to get him. They want to destroy the pilot. There is an investigation.

Reporters across America with blue check marks on social media (the hordes of Mordo) are after a Southwest pilot for allegedly saying, "Let's go Brandon." The reporter herself tried to storm the cockpit to demand an explanation. I'm not making it up. She even tweeted about it and put it on TikTok. She tried to walk into the cockpit. She insisted the flight attendants open the door. They nearly threw her off the plane, as a result. She says she was writing a story on the, let's go Brandon phenomenon.

I'm old enough to remember Bush caricatured as a monkey. George W. Bush as Hitler, Dick Cheney the murderer, the blood on their hands, the caricatures, the F Bush chants, the Code Pink protestors dressed in costumes designed to look like woman's female reproductive organs. They actually dressed in full-body costumes that looked like that. At Trump's inauguration, they wore knitted pink hats using the P-word to describe them. That's what they wore in protest.

F Trump. That's what they would chant. They rioted. They protested. They burned limousines. They smashed through small businesses. They've done all sorts of violence along the way. And now they're upset with, let's go, Brandon? Remember Rashida Tlaib, after her election saying, "Now we're going to impeach the Mother F-er." The crowd went wild.

You don't get to vulgarize political discourse, and then get upset when people say, "Let's go, Brandon", which is a way for people to be in on a joke without further vulgarizing the conversation. Because let's go Brandon is a substitute for F Joe Biden, which you people were fine chanting for Trump and for Bush, but you don't want it for Joe Biden. Why? Because he is yours and this is religious fanaticism.

The left is reacting to let's go Brandon, almost like the Charlie Hebdo massacre people were because of the Mohamed cartoons. They're not trying to kill people, they're not trying to chop off heads, but they are trying to destroy lives. There isn't a lot of difference between the wokes and Islamic jihadists other than the jihadists will chop off your head and the wokes just want to destroy your life.

All of this is from the same worldly, religious zeal. The things of the world hate the things of God. And the things of the world, they don't like to be mocked. The devil doesn't like to be mocked. All of this is part of a spiritual collapse in the country. The vulgarization of politics in this country comes from a deeply dark place of a spiritual void where people are now letting politics creep into their lives and fill the void left by where God should be. They become angry and they take to religious fervor and they're upset by it.

Here's the interesting thing about it. Since the year 2001, the media has largely ignored the left-wing vulgarizing of culture, particularly in political discourse. There were never stories about the F-Bush or F-Trump phenomenon, which was a thing. There were never major stories about how so many people on the left compared George W. Bush to Hitler. Now, the media openly uses the big lie, referring to Republicans.

They don't care, when it's their side doing it. They care passionately when it's our side because they don't want to be mocked. They can't be mocked. They can't take it. The left has lost its sense of humor, not that they ever had one, but it's gotten even worse. This is a problem that they've got to deal with.

Now, here again, they're trying to destroy a Southwest Airlines pilot, because a reporter for the Associated Press overheard him say, "Let's go Brandon." And it actually appears very likely he said, "Let's go Braves.", based on the audio we have. But it didn't stop the reporter from presuming he had done it. And it didn't stop other reporters for going after it.

There are some great Twitter accounts to follow. One of them is a guy named, Drew Holden, a friend of mine. And he pointed out a number of the people who were in incensed about the Southwest Airlines pilot saying, potentially, "Let's go, Brandon." are people who were cheering on protestors saying, "F Trump.", over the last several years. Of course, they were because it's all about team sport.

But there is this larger issue here. Now, listen, this is one of those, let the reader understand, moments because some of you aren't going to get what I'm saying. Some of you, it will pass over your head. And for some of you, I'm about to deeply offend you, and I don't mean to. All I can ask is that you show me a level of grace with what I'm about to say.

The world is three-dimensional, but there's a fourth dimension and scripture talks about it. The things unseen. Our fight is not with the princes and principalities of this world, but with the things unseen. We wrestle, not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over the present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. There is a level of depravity that has crept into American culture, as our culture turns post-Christianity. It's happening on the right as well. We see it on the right too. People on the right are losing their sense of humor. They can't laugh.

We are made in the image of God and God has a sense of humor. If you do not believe that God has a sense of humor, behold the platypus. God has a sense of humor. And as people move further and further away from him, the less and less they have a sense of humor, the less and less they can laugh. Jesus wept. He also laughed. And as people make politics their religion, their religion loses grace, because secularism has no grace in it. And so, both sides then become very, very embittered and angry when you poke fun at them.

The left certainly can't handle, let's go, Brandon, of all things. For those of you who don't know the background here, and I continue to find people who don't, an NBC News reporter was talking to Brandon, I forget his last name. He won a NASCAR race. The crowd is chanting loudly, "F Joe Biden." She claims what she hears is the crowd chanting, "Let's go Brandon.", and asks Brandon about it. He gets this very perplexed look on his face because that's not what they're chanting. And she says, "Listen to them. Listen to the crowd. They're chanting, "Let's go, Brandon." And let's go Brandon has now been embraced by people across the political spectrum of the right. Instead of saying, "F Joe Biden", as some college kids were saying, everybody's saying, "Let's go, Brandon." It's a funny joke with a funny origin. Maybe it's overkill, but it's something you should be able to laugh at.

The left can't laugh at it, because politics has replaced religion. It's the same thing as saying, "F your God." to say, "Let's go, Brandon." Joe Biden is their God, at the moment, because he's in charge of their political movement. And whoever is in charge of the movement, shall not be mocked by Republicans and conservatives. You can't mock them because you're mocking their religious high priests and gods. And so, the result is, in a graceless society now, they've got to destroy.

That poor pilot, all he did is say, "Let's go Brandon.", except he didn't. He said, "Let's go Braves." And an Associated Press reporter, and that's one of the key points here, is an Associated Press reporter is the one who stirred it all up. They have a vested interest in this stuff. But I want you to be careful here. This is where I'm going to make some of you mad. It's not just a phenomenon of the left. We're seeing the rise of the post-Christianity on the right and they do the same thing. It was actually Thomas Moore, who said the devil cannot endure being mocked. I stirred people up this weekend. I became part of this news story, unintentionally, because of a tweet.

Erick Erickson @EWErickson

The devil cannot endure to be mocked. Neither can the wokes. Make of that what you will and let’s go Brandon.

The woke crowd came after me, as others did as well. "You can't say that. You're cursing them." I'm not. I'm just saying, wokism comes from the spiritual darkness where we're dealing with the country. Religion doesn't go away, it just takes new forms. When Christianity goes away, darkness creeps in. What we're seeing in this country, is profound, spiritual darkness. We are ultimately in a 4D battle, there's a spiritual fight going on, on top of everything else that explains so much of what's happening in the country.

You're not supposed to talk about it, because you sound a little off when you talk about it and it's not just on the left. The devil cannot endure to be mocked. Neither can the people who think Jesus is going to save him from COVID, but they got to take a cavalcade of pills to save them from everything else. So if you don't like me saying that, it's still true and it's from the same thing. This level of crazy skepticism and irrational questioning and conspiracy theorizing comes from the same place as the people who are insane about people saying, "Let's go, Brandon."

You may not like me to say that, but I'm very serious. This is true. But the topic at hand is not the conspiracy theorists of the right. It's the reporters with blue checkmarks who can't handle you laughing at Joe Biden, who may or may not have pooped his britches in front of the Pope this weekend. That too is a new story. All I can say about that one is, "Let's go, Brandon."

You should listen to my interview with Wes Anderson. You probably don’t know him but he is one of the more prominent pollsters. He shared some keen insights on trend lines in Virginia and Georgia. Check it out here.