Then there are those who immediately fall back to a version of the “whatabout” arguments that dominated right-wing punditry during the Trump administration. It goes like this: Oh, Trump said X? Yeah, well, what about when a progressive said this other bad thing without it raising hackles? The left is full of hypocrites deploying double standards!

Applied to the “Let’s go, Brandon!” phenomenon, the “what about” move involves claiming that Democrats said mean things about Trump for four years and so it’s hypocritical of them to complain about insults directed at Joe Biden. Republicans are merely hurling back what the left threw at them for four long years.

Never mind that during four years of living, working, socializing, and traveling widely through deep-blue parts of the country from 2016 to 2020, I never once saw a “F–k Trump” flag or yard sign. I saw plenty of expression of moral disapproval of the administration, sure, but no outright insults directed at the president or those who voted for him. (Plenty of journalists and activists accused Trump and his supporters of racism, but those are assertions of fact that can be, and often have been, argued with. That makes such claims categorically different than a pure insult like “F–k Trump.”)