FUKRs,
I love me a good First Amendment case, and there’s one brewing in a Michigan public school district that has me tied up in constitutional knots. At the heart of the case is the popular right-wing chant “Let’s Go Brandon!” and whether a school can prohibit its students from wearing clothing with that phrase on it.
I assume you know what “Let’s Go Brandon!” refers to? In case you don’t, it comes from a hilarious misunderstanding on the part of a sports reporter conducting an interview with the winning driver at a NASCAR race. She heard the crowd in the background chanting “Fuck Joe Biden!” and mistakenly thought they were cheering for the driver, Brandon Brown. Instantly, the political right had the greatest rallying cry ever dropped right in their lap.
That was October 2021. Fast forward five months, and some douche bag sixth-grader in Howard City, Michigan decides to wear a sweatshirt with that slogan to school one day. Now, for the moment we’ll set aside the fact that 11 year olds aren’t smart enough, educated enough, or mature enough to have genuinely held opinions on the great political questions of the day. I wasn’t when I was 11, you weren’t when you were 11, and neither is this dumbass. So who’s the real douche bag here? The kid’s father, most likely, who thinks it’s funny to use his children as props for his own political expression. His wife probably sends their 8 year old out to the abortion clinic carrying a sign that says “Every life is sacred.” Uncool, people. Uncool.
That criticism notwithstanding, there’s a real First Amendment issue at stake here. The Constitution clearly protects every individual’s right to express political opinions, and the message on this “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirt is clearly a political opinion. But there are limits to your First Amendment rights, and one of those limits is that a public school can place reasonable restrictions on language that is lewd, vulgar, or profane. As an example, we’d all agree that we don’t want third graders walking the hallways of their school wearing hats that say “Fuck your mother” or t-shirts saying “This dick ain’t gonna suck itself.” We’d be fine with an elementary school principal sending that kid home to change.
So there are two questions at the heart of this case. One — is the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon” vulgar? And two — if it is vulgar, does that concern outweigh the fact that the opinion being expressed is political?
On the first question, I think we’d all agree that the phrase “Fuck Joe Biden” is vulgar. If a kid wore that to school and got sent home, there’d probably be no lawsuit. But what if you concealed the one offensive word and wore a shirt that said “F*** Joe Biden?” Still vulgar? I think so, because everyone knows what that first word really is.
But “Let’s Go Brandon” doesn’t have any actual vulgarity in it. The school district argued that the phrase is “transparent code for using profanity against the President.” Transparent code? Sure, it’s code and it’s transparent, but it feels like a stretch to say it’s therefore vulgar. The fact that it’s code is precisely what makes it not vulgar.
And that’s exactly the argument that the lawyer for this sixth grader made. He argued that alluding to a vulgar phrase is not actually vulgar — much like a radio-friendly version of a rap song that edits out the bad words is not vulgar.
So the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon” might piss you off, but that’s very different from being vulgar.
And let’s be honest, Libs. That’s what we’re really upset about here, right? It’s not that “Let’s Go Brandon” is actually vulgar. It’s that “Let’s Go Brandon” is clever as hell, and we wish to God that we could come up with an equivalent phrase about Donald Trump. Every time Marjorie Taylor Greene says “Let’s Go Brandon,” we’re not mad at her for swearing. We’re mad at her because we have no comeback. And if you want to get really deep and psychoanalytical, we’re actually mad at ourselves for letting this stupid phrase get under our skin.
Lord knows public school teachers and principals have a hard enough job as it is, and I get it that their lives would be easier if they didn’t have to deal with crap like this. But the First Amendment isn’t something that I can dismiss lightly. Vulgar or not – and I lean towards “not” – I think this sweatshirt needs to be allowed.
The lawsuit filed against the school district claims the kid in question suffered “irreparable injury.” Well, that’s a bit of a stretch. Give him a $100 gift card to GameStop and I’m guessing he’ll consider this injury repaired. More importantly, let’s make sure that when the First Amendment is at stake, we’re erring on the side of protecting free speech, even if we don’t like the speech that’s being protected.
And Libs – for fuck’s sake, come up with a chant that’s as good as “Let’s Go Brandon!” Seriously, how hard could it be?
Good article!