NASCAR Driver Brandon Brown Afraid He'll Get Canceled Over 'Let's Go Brandon'

"Let's go, Brandon" has become such a widespread slogan that you might have forgotten how it originated.

After NASCAR driver Brandon Brown won the Talladega Superspeedway on Oct. 2, an NBC sports reporter told him the crowd was chanting "let's go, Brandon" when they were so clearly yelling "f*** Joe Biden." Interestingly, Brown has been silent since the interview.

On Monday, Brown spoke to the New York Times about the chant's surge. Brown says he found the subsequent memes "kind of funny" before realizing the joke had staying power. At that moment, Brown feared the Left would cancel him.

"I was afraid of being canceled by my sponsors, or by the media, for being caught up in something that has little to do with me," he said.

However, a spokesman for Brown's racing team told the Times that "waiting out the storm wasn't working" and Brown's "silence on the matter seemed to be a political statement." So Brown decided to author an op-ed in Newsweek on Monday to explain his silence:

"All the advice I got from those around my racing career was to stay quiet after that now-famous interview," Brown writes. "No one knew how my sponsors would react and, in my world, there is no car to drive without the sponsors."

While Brown admits he is a Republican, he wishes not to be involved in politics publicly. "I have no interest in leading some political fight. I race cars. I am not going to endorse anyone, and I am certainly not going to tell anyone how to vote," he concludes.

That's such a wise point. An athlete can have political opinions but choose not to voice them to avoid losing half the country's support. Somehow, NBA players can't fathom such logic.

Ultimately, Brown would prefer fans cheer a new slogan: "Let's go, America."

What a reasonable and likable guy. That's so rare in sports. Let's go, Brandon Brown.