Joe Biden's "Soul of the Nation" Speech

About

Joe Biden's "Soul of the Nation" Speech, also known as the Biden Rant, refers to an exploitable meme template that takes multiple different images from President Joe Biden's September 1st, 2022, speech in which he had a red light behind him, which others took to be threatening and sinister. The viral speech went on to become associated with the Dark Brandon series of memes in early September 2022.

Origin

On September 1st, 2022, Joe Biden gave a speech on live television, and during the broadcast when he began to talk about his opponents, the MAGA crowd, the camera zoomed in to show only Biden and the red background coloring behind him. Immediately this was picked up by people who began to poke fun at it, such as Barstool Sports president Dave Portnoy, who tweeted^[1] a clip of the moment and declared that it looked like "the Soviet Union and Hitler had a baby," earning over 70,000 likes in five days (shown below).

Spread

The meme continued to pick up and spread in two different ways, with people being serious about the implications of the speech and the dramatic lighting that was behind it, and with others using the moment to be opportunistic and create more Dark Brandon memes, leaning further into the idea that Biden is truly as dangerous and vengeful as earlier Dark Brandon memes suggested. This contrast can be seen in the meme tweeted out by @DailyCaller^[2] the following morning, in which Joe Biden's Red Speech is teased as being the next installment in the Star Wars franchise coming to Disney+, called 'The Rise of Brandon', which earned over 26,000 likes in four days (shown below, left) and the meme by Twitter account @LatteLiberalUSA^[3], in which the Kramer, What's Going On In There? format is used to portray Biden as this powerful force, earning over 30,000 likes in four days (shown below).

On the website Imgflip, the meme goes by the name Biden Rant, and has been used politically to create parallels to Hitler and for Let's Go Brandon adjacent memes, such as the They're The Same Picture meme that was uploaded on September 3rd, 2022 by the Imgflip user norsegreen^[4] that compared Joe Biden's rant to Hitler's rant, with them both having their arms raised in fists (shown below).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References