"And if Dark Brandon transforms from parody imbued with implicit eye-rolling to enthusiastic exaggeration of the president’s capabilities..."

"... there’s no joke there at all anymore. So, the comedy has turned to tragedy, and if Dark Brandon isn’t dead yet, he probably will be soon. An additional hazard for the hipper, nihilistic early adopters of this trend, assuming everything ironic on the internet does really become genuine: If they’re not careful, maybe they’ll start liking Biden, too."

Writes Molly Roberts in "The Dark Brandon meme can’t escape death" (WaPo).

This news of the inevitable death of the "Dark Brandon" meme comes one day after I blogged "Meet Dark Brandon," which was based on an August 8th WaPo column "Brandon returns, darkly: Democrats turn an insult into a pro-Biden meme." 

That column was written by Matt Viser, whose newest column — "Biden, trying to tout his policies, faces a familiar intruder: Trump" — I just blogged in the previous post.  

Please don't get the impression I'm suddenly a Matt Viser fan. I blogged those columns to write criticism, not to praise them. 

I'm pleased if I contributed at all to the decline of the "Dark Brandon" meme. What I said — sarcastically riffing on something Viser said — was : "Sure, why not? Tap into the zeitgeist! The zeitgeist is fascism, right?"

Now, I'm seeing my quote in light of Roberts's line: "everything ironic on the internet does really become genuine." Should I infer Don't make fun, because it will come true? One more reason to say we're living in The Era of That's Not Funny.

Ludicrous Washington Post headline uses the word "intruder" to characterize Trump — and Trump is intruding on Biden.

"Biden, trying to tout his policies, faces a familiar intruder: Trump."

Yeah, stop thinking about the shocking literal intrusion on Trump that was the raid on Mar-a-Lago. Think about how Trump, by getting attention, figuratively intrudes on Biden.

The headline sits atop a column by Matt Viser. Subheadline: "For much of his presidency, Biden has had to compete for attention with the 'former guy,' who left office a year-and-a half-ago but has never really left the public consciousness."

How can we stop thinking about Trump when his antagonists are doing such conspicuous things to him?

It's a new column. It went up at 5 this morning, after the Mar-a-Lago raid. Quite aside from that, the January 6th hearings are highly public political theater demanding that we focus on Trump and not look away. It's ridiculous to blame Trump as an "intruder"!

Let's read the column: