GOPe Excuses For Bud Light Snatch Defeat From the Jaws of a Culture War Victory
Republicans like Donald Trump Jr. and the National Republican Congressional Committee are asking conservatives to walk back their criticism and boycott of GOP donor Bud Light after the beer company used a man in lady face to promote its products.
Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch came under fire in recent weeks after it partnered with professional woman mocker Dylan Mulvaney to promote its “Easy Carry Contest.”
Americans, angry at the beer company’s embrace of radical gender ideology, quickly initiated a boycott of all Budweiser products. As a result, Anheuser-Busch’s stock prices tumbled, and videos of once-avid Bud Light drinkers destroying and flipping off the iconic blue cans went viral.
Instead of leveraging their base’s ability to raise a ruckus against corporate indoctrinators, Republican players like the NRCC and Trump Jr. are taking the side of the company that chose to issue a nothing burger statement asserting that Bud Light “never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people.”
NRCC reacted by quietly deleting a tweet marketing the fundraising committee’s “this beer identifies as water” koozies mocking the alcohol company. Trump Jr., similarly, said on his “Triggered” podcast he plans to leave Bud Light “alone” and that he wants conservatives to “do the same.”
“Here’s the deal. Anheuser Busch totally sh-t the bed with this Dylan Mulvaney thing. I’m not, though, for destroying an American and iconic company for something like this,” Trump Jr. warned.
Trump Jr. knows the irreversible, permanent, and life-threatening consequences of selling the lie that someone must mangle his body to be his true self. So much so that he regularly tweets about the dangers of radical gender ideology.
In just the last few days, Trump Jr. criticized leftist legislation that threatens parents who refuse to comply with the state’s mutilation campaign, wondered where all the “reasonable” Democrats are when it comes to radical gender ideology, and posted a graph mocking the men who invade women’s sports.
When it comes to the creators of Bud Light, however, Trump Jr. said Anheuser-Busch deserves a second chance because it gives money to Republican candidates and keeps its lobbying “focused on taxes and trade, things that actually impact their business.”
“I’m not gonna blame the whole company for the inaction or the stupidity of someone in a marketing campaign that got woke as hell,” Trump Jr. said. “The company itself doesn’t participate in the same leftist nonsense as the other big conglomerates. Frankly, they don’t participate in the same woke garbage that other people in the beer industry actually do who are significantly worse offenders.”
Only if Bud Light tries to sell its products using leftist marketing, the former president’s son added, does the company deserve scrutiny.
“If they do this again. Then it’s on them. Then screw them,” Trump Jr. said.
What Can Bud Light Do To Win Back Americans? The Answer Should Be Nothing
Choosing a man who profits off of his absurd assertion that “girlhood” is an ensemble anyone can take off or put on whenever he wants isn’t just a one-off mistake by a woke marketing intern, as Trump Jr. suggested in his spiel. It was a deliberate decision, just like Anheuser-Busch’s decision to use the company’s many brands to advance discriminatory “DEI” ideology to advance a political agenda amongst its buyers.
For years, Anheuser-Busch has incorporated drag queens, rainbows, and “pride” symbols in its marketing to signal support for the LGBT agenda. Its repeated endorsement of alphabet sexuality ideology has earned the favor of activist organizations like GLAAD, whose President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis celebrated Bud Light for having “long been a staunch supporter of the LGBT community.”
It shouldn’t matter that Anheuser-Busch funnels hundreds of thousands in donations to GOP candidates who may or may not sign legislation that most of the nation supports.
It’s clear from the reaction of thousands of angry Americans they are more concerned about losing the culture war and what’s left of the world’s grasp on reality than money from a company that laces its marketing with a leftist agenda. Pretending that doesn’t matter and walking away from the moment isn’t just ignorant — it’s disingenuous and deserves to be shamed.
When the left targets companies that don’t comply with its line of thinking, they get results. There are resignations, ended sponsorships, firings, and even jail time for their political enemies. Conservatives got a statement that said nothing of importance, and Republican voices rushed to affirm it.
Anheuser-Busch’s statement and subsequent advertisement invoking Americans’ feelings about 9/11 did nothing to satiate unhappy customers because nothing can.
The establishment right’s rushed acceptance of a perfunctory statement instead of calling for hellfire is the kind of stupid, willful ignorance that loses not just elections but the culture war. Joking that “the memes are good” but not worth losing donor dollars simply isn’t going to stave off the left’s advances.
The trans issue is a litmus test. Bud Light failed it, and the GOP wants to turn a blind eye. That’s not the mutually assured destruction that wins elections or culture wars. As a matter of fact, it’s the same kind of cowardice that holds back Republicans on other social issues like abortion.
In the past, Republicans may have settled for letting bygones be bygones, but this was before every institution, including hospitals, the White House, schools, Big Tech, the music industry, corporations, corporate media, and online dictionaries, promoted the state-sanctioned mutilation and mangling of children.
In a way, the NRCC and Trump Jr.’s “if you can’t beat them, join them” response to the Bud Light controversy was no better in voters’ eyes than Rep. Ted Lieu and his Democrat buddies who posed with the beer to “mock stupid stuff by MAGA Republicans.”
A Republican Party that limits itself by prioritizing corporate interests over the well-being of children is not a political institution that cares about the concerns of reasonable people who make up the heartland. Harming children to advance an ideological agenda is unforgivable, and it’s past time for the GOP to walk the walk instead of talking the talk.
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While some on the right have gone weak in the knees regarding the Bud Light controversy, Ron DeSantis got it right on Monday, unequivocally supporting conservative efforts to boycott the company.
Anhueser-Busch, which owns the Bud Light brand, has found itself between a rock and a hard place following an ill-advised advertising partnership with transgender “influencer” Dylan Mulvaney. The company produced a can to celebrate the biological man’s supposed “365th Day of Girlhood” (because we are talking about a grown man who pretends to be a pre-teen girl).
Two videos put out by Mulvaney showing off the can and doing advertising hits for Bud Light set things ablaze, and Anheuser-Busch has been working to put the fire out ever since. Unfortunately, some Republicans weren’t up for the fight. Donald Trump Jr. urged an end to the boycott on his podcast, noting that Anheuser-Busch had given money to Republicans in the past. That obviously didn’t go over very well, as it gave the impression that conservatives should be beholden to the donor class instead of standing up for what is right.
DeSantis took a different path, though. On two separate occasions, he made clear that he’s not wavering against these woke corporations, whether it’s Disney or Anheuser-Busch.
DESANTIS: Why would you want to drink Bud Light? I mean like, honestly, that’s like them rubbing our faces in it, and it’s like, these companies that do this, if they never have any response, they’re just going to keep doing it. So if you as a consumer are like, “yeah, they’re basically,” and it’s such a fraud what they’re doing with that, “like yeah, they’re doing that, but I’m going to keep drinking it anyway,” well they’re just gonna keep doing it.
So I think we have power as consumers to make our voice heard, and not on every company because sometimes conservatives consumers aren’t gonna make a dent in some companies. This one is one, if you don’t have conservative beer drinkers, you’re gonna feel that.
And so, I think it’s a righteous, uh, I think it’s a righteous thing. You know, some of these controversies, they come up, and people can kind of just say, “Oh well, it’s kind of a one-off, yeah it was stupid to do.” But it’s part of a larger thing where corporate America is trying to change our country. Trying to change policy, trying to change culture, and you know, I’d rather be governed by “we the people” than woke companies. So I think pushback is in order across the board, including with Bud Light.
JOHNSON: Will we ever see you drinking a Bud Light again?
DESANTIS: No, I don’t think so.
Everything DeSantis said was on the money, but I think one of the key points there is that conservatives don’t have influence over every company. Heck, they don’t have influence over most companies. That’s what made some on the right folding in this situation so frustrating. If we can’t keep Bud Light in line, what companies can we keep in line? When you’ve got leverage, you must use it to send a message, and given that Anheuser-Busch hasn’t even fired the woke Vice President of Marketing who came up with the Mulvaney idea and doubled down with an insulting statement afterward, I don’t quite think they’ve gotten the message yet.
I tend to fall on the side of those who say that conservatives need to follow through and take a scalp. Short of an unequivocal apology and repudiation of the insanity of a grown man pretending to be a pre-teen girl, the boycott should continue. These companies have gotten far too used to ignoring half the country, and the time to apply the pressure is now while conservatives still have some sway.
There’s a lot that’s being said about DeSantis, specifically in regard to a possible 2024 run. Namely, ridiculous accusations that he’s bought and paid for by donors. Yet, his actions continue to prove that’s absolute nonsense. He defied the donor class on Disney. He defied the donor class on Florida’s new abortion law. And now, he’s defying the donor class on Bud Light. DeSantis clearly operates with real conviction, and that’s a good thing for a politician when so many others clearly don’t.
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