‘Let’s Go Brandon’ boat wins waterfront holiday parade contest, then is stripped of award for its political message

“Let’s go, Brandon” — a boat bedecked with a coded insult to President Joe Biden — won the Yorktown Lighted Boat Parade contest Saturday evening. At least initially.

Hours after the festive event, the Yorktown Foundation, the non-profit organization that sponsors the parade, disqualified the winning vessel for its “overt political message” and stripped it of its award.

The well-lit 50-foot vessel also featured “FJB” in white lights, an apparent reference to “F--- Joe Biden,” the stadium chant that gave rise to the “Let’s go, Brandon” euphemism.

A member of the Yorktown Foundation’s board of directors, Walt Akers, apologized to the community and event sponsors Monday for what he called “a huge mistake.”

“We profoundly apologize for what happened, and we deeply regret that this happened at all,” Akers said. “And we’re going to take actions to make sure it doesn’t happen in the future.”

At Saturday’s event, some shoreline spectators joined the boat crew in the “Let’s go, Brandon” chant as the vessel passed. But others were angered that organizers allowed politics to overshadow a long running Yorktown Christmas event.

“It just breaks the spirit that this happened,” said York County resident Teri Hodson, who attended the event. “It was disheartening.”

Earlier that evening, Hodson said, she was among families with children at the bonfire, with people dressed up for the the holiday festivities “and I thought, how blessed am I?”

Those feelings ended when she saw the boat.

“That sentiment on that boat lit up in lights — F Joe Biden — was the antithesis of the Christmas spirit,” she said, adding that people had to explain to their children what the “Let’s Go Brandon” slogan meant.

The Yorktown Foundation stripped the boat of its “Best in Show” title hours later. Organizers declared the runner-up, a boat called “Peace on Earth” that featured singing angels in white, the rightful winner.

The political dust up over the boat has shaken the foundation’s six-member board, which decided Tuesday the long-running Christmas event would continue — but only if organizers ban political messages on participating vessels.

“We’ve asked the Yorktown Lighted Boat Parade to provide us with a list of the steps that they’re going to take to ensure that this will never happen again,” Akers said.

Parade organizers also have since posted an apology on their Facebook page, and listed preliminary steps they plan to take. The foundation also is sending a letter to its other underling organizations — the Celebrate Yorktown Committee, the Virginia Symphony in Yorktown, the Tall Ships Committee — to tell them in no uncertain terms that political messages aren’t permitted.

Akers said the foundation, which operates with annual contributions from the county, could lose its tax-exempt status from the IRS if it “tolerates” the political messaging in an event it sponsored. “Therefore, we will not tolerate it,” he said.

He said he and County Administrator Neil Morgan spent a large part of Monday responding to emails from angry constituents.

The Yorktown Lighted Boat Parade began in 1997, and is among several events the foundation hosts during a weekend-long Christmas celebration.

The brief history of the “Let’s go, Brandon” euphemism can be traced to an October NASCAR event. The crowd at the Oct. 2 Xfiniti race was chanting “F--- Joe Biden” as an NBC reporter conducted a live interview with winner Brandon Brown.

The reporter incorrectly suggested that the crowd was chanting “Let’s go, Brandon.” The interview soon went viral, and “Let’s go Brandon” quickly became a popular anti-Biden slogan in Republican circles. The reference is now increasingly seen on hats, T-shirts, signs and other merchandise.

Bill Berger, the Gloucester Point owner of the “Let’s go Brandon” boat — a 50-foot deadrise named the Southern Rock — could not be reached for comment this week, but defended his boat decorations in a Facebook post.

Berger said no curse words were included in the decorations and that he honored police officers and the military with other decorations on board, and that everyone knows who really won. Berger also said he told organizers several days in advance what his boat’s theme would be — and no one had a problem with it.

“If you choose to interpret ‘bad words’ that’s on you,” Berger wrote in the Facebook post. “No curse words ever from my boat.”

The boat was a spirited one, Berger said, playing a “Let’s Go Brandon” song interspersed between “many Christmas songs.” He had crew members dressed up as Santa and President Biden, both “yelling Merry Christmas” from the vessel, he wrote.

York County Board of Supervisors Chairman Chad Green said he was one of the judges Saturday along with York-Poquoson Sheriff J.D. “Danny” Diggs and three others he didn’t know.

Green said he’s judged the boat parade for five or six years. “I showed up, and I was given a sheet of criteria on which to vote for,” which he said included “lights, spirit, and the wow factor.”

“I did my job, I walked away, and then suddenly there’s all kinds of controversy,” he said. “But I feel that my judging was fair and open and honest.”

Green added that he’s “certainly not going to abridge free speech” on a boat’s messaging. “I might not agree with it, but I’ll fight for your right to say it,” he said.

Diggs, for his part, said he thought the “Let’s go, Brandon” boat “was the winning boat,” adding that he ranked “Peace on Earth” a close second.

“If there had been a boat out there with some kind of content that I personally didn’t like, do I penalize that person because they were exercising their free speech, and I just didn’t like it? The answer is no,” Diggs said.

One boat judge, a military service member, voted for the “Let’s go, Brandon” boat without realizing what the phrase meant. He rescinded his vote after a family member informed him of the meaning, Akers said.

York County resident Angier Brock, 74, was among those critical of the “Lets go, Brandon” decorations, calling it “a mean-spirited stunt” that had “nothing to do Christmas spirit, holiday spirit, family togetherness, uniting us.”

“I just felt kind of brokenhearted that that kind of hyper-partisanship had intruded in such a crude way,” she said.

On the other hand, Green said he’s heard from many constituents who liked the boat.

“The response has been overwhelmingly positive from the people that have contacted me,” he said.

Peter Dujardin can be reached at 757-247-4749 or by email at pdujardin@dailypress.com