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‘Just like we drew it up’: Biden’s epic Super Bowl troll

Kansas City Chiefs win Super Bowl

US President Joe Biden has poked fun at conspiracy theories doing the rounds about the Super Bowl final.

“Just like we drew it up,” Biden wrote on X, shortly after the Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers in a history-making Super Bowl in Las Vegas on Sunday (US time).

The post – on Biden’s personal account – featured a meme of “Dark Brandon”, showing the President with lasers shooting out of his eyes.

“Dark Brandon” is a movement that started within the US Republican Party as a way to bash Biden’s policies. It’s since taken on a form of its own, being co-opted by Biden and his social media team.

The Chiefs won their winning their third NFL championship in five years on Sunday. But, for just the second time in history, the Super Bowl went into overtime after scores were tied at the end of full-time.

The Chiefs won with just seconds on the clock, with the final score 25-22.

The game was also notable as another chapter in the love story between the Chiefs’ star tight end Travis Kelce and megastar Taylor Swift, who began dating last year.

Swift made a trans-Pacific dash back from performing in Japan to watch the game, chugged a beer in the stands and hugged and kissed Kelce on the field afterwards.

But the days ahead of Sunday’s final were also notable for a flood of unproven conspiracy theories across conservative media in the US, relating to Swift, the NFL and the Democratic Party. Theories spiked after The New York Times reported Biden was seeking an endorsement from Swift, who backed him in his race against Donald Trump in 2020.

There were suggestions the playoffs were rigged in favour of the Chiefs, so Swift could help Biden get re-elected. The theories ran on into Sunday’s close-run final.

“I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall,” tweeted Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy as the Super Bowl wound down.

Swift has also been the target of her own right-wing conspiracy theorgies, including that she is a “psyop” (or psychological operative) being used to help the Democrats to victory in this year’s US presidential elections.

Aside for her worldwide Eras Tour (which heads to Australia later this week) and her re-release of old “stolen” albums, much of the recent publicity surrounding Swift is due to her relationship with Kelce.

She has had a high profile at several recent Chiefs games.

Kelce is also out of favour with some conservatives after appearing in a commercial for Pfizer, earning him the nickname “Mr Pfizer”.

“The NFL is totally RIGGED for the Kansas City Chiefs, Taylor Swift, Mr. Pfizer,” Mike Crispi, a Salem Media host claimed in late January, according to CNN.

Biden also referenced the conspiracy theories in a new TikTok account set up for his re-election campaign. Its first post featured questions about the Super Bowl.

Asked about the theory that the Chiefs were set up to win the game to bolster a likely Swift endorsement, Biden said: “I’d get in trouble if I told you.”

His re-election deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty said the TikTok debut was about finding ways to reach younger voters “in an evolving, fragmented, and increasingly personalised media environment”.

At the White House, though, national security spokesman John Kirby said there were still national security concerns about the use of the social media platform on government devices.

“There’s been no change to our policy not to allow that,” he said.

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