Voices: The silver lining to the absurd Budweiser boycott

In case you missed it, actor, comedian and controversial TikTok star, Dylan Mulvaney, recently endorsed Bud Light in a promotional campaign sponsored by the beer company. What would normally be a flash in the pan celebrity-corpoate deal has led to explosive reactions that Budweiser’s PR team most likely didn’t ever dream would happen. I might personally find Mulvaney obnoxious (case in point: This video in which she endorses Nike. No one exercises like that except maybe Richard Simmons) and a bit too fast and loose with gender stereotypes. But she’s a famous Internet celebrity, and brands often partner with high-profile influencers to market their goods. Just because I don’t like someone’s schtick doesn’t mean I don’t think they should make a living. Get your money, Dylan.

Not everyone agrees. Country singer Travis Tritt – who in the 1990s often dressed like the lovechild of Liberace and Barbara Mandrell – announced he would no longer include Budweiser in his hospitality packages on tour. Robert James Richie – who grew up in a $1.3 million mansion outside Detroit but masquerades as white trash everyman Kid Rock – went viral for shooting at Bud Light products with an assault rifle. (Because that’s normal.) Congressman Dan Crenshaw tried to get in on the action with a TikTok that showed his fridge stocked with, among other beers, Karbach, which is owned by Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch.

The only reason anyone is upset by Mulvaney’s endorsement is that she is transgender. The whole thing has gotten so hateful and ridiculous that no less than Donald Trump, Jr. has called for an end to the boycott. “I’m not for destroying an American, an iconic company for something like this,” he said on his podcast, “Triggered with Don, Jr.”

As chance may have it, I am for destroying iconic companies because I think the whole system is corrupt and hurts the working people of not only America, but the world. Still, in this context, I have to agree with Don, Jr.

Christ, that hurt to say. When Donald Trump, Jr. is the voice of reason, you know things have gone seriously awry. He may be right to be concerned, though, if Anheuser-Busch’s bottom line is something you are actually concerned about. There is some evidence that the boycott is working and may have shaved as much as $4 billion of Anheuser-Busch’s market capitalization.

However, as a Newsweek fact check reports that “the drop does not prove that a boycott of Bud Light products alone has had this effect. The change in price is not far off other fluctuations prior to the Mulvaney ad,” and that the stock has been increasing since September 2022, hit a 52-week high in March, and that recent drops may well be “a result of a market correction or trading resistance between bull and bear traders.”

That’s a fancy way of saying “correlation does not equal causation, you muppets.” This boycott is the dumbest thing I’ve seen since Republicans boycotted the Covid vaccine to “own the libs” by dying en masse. It is accomplishing nothing except vilifying a trans woman as part of a conservative culture war against transgender people and their rights. And, as the sheer number of conservatives who are still unwittingly drinking Budweiser products – including Congressman Crenshaw – demonstrate, it’s nothing but craven virtue signaling on their part.

Frankly, I’m surprised that the right is suddenly going all in on boycotts; I’m old enough to remember when the right was against this kind of political theater. They made that much as clear when many progressives were upset that Hobby Lobby was able to deny women healthcare based on its owner’s religious beliefs, when Chick-fil-A founder Dan Cathy was found donating to anti-LGBTQ charities, and when that MyPillow guy tried to overthrow the government.

For what it’s worth, I never really participated in those boycotts because I thought they were somewhat silly too – and because I don’t particularly care for Chick-fil-A (it’s not that good and you all are brainwashed). Boycotts should be targeted, organized, and purposeful – see: The Montgomery Bus Boycott – and none of those were, just as the Bud Light boycott isn’t now.

Boycotts should not be tantrums thrown on Twitter. They really should not involve the use of firearms. And they definitely should not ignore the actual transgressions companies commit, ones we let slide every day.

There may be reasons to boycott Anheuser-Busch. They’ve been fined by the state of California for violating air quality regulations. They refused to pay their British workers fairly in a time of rising inflation and a cost of living crisis, despite grossing $38.481 billion in profits last year and ranking as one of Forbes’ most valuable global brands. Their choice of spokesperson, though, is not one of them.

When it comes to these large, multinational corporations, there is far more for us to be upset about than Dylan Mulvaney or Dan Cathy. The fact that Dan Crenshaw can’t even properly boycott Anheuser-Busch – remember, he ditched Bud Light for another one of the company’s products – illustrates the real problem. When one corporation has such market dominance that it makes it hard to avoid their products, we have an issue bigger than Bud Light.

Growing conglomerates and monopolies, the destruction of small businesses by multinational corporations, the demise of local economies, human rights abuses by multinational corporations in the developing world and the environmental impact of those multinationals, the denial of living wages in an era of record profits – these deserve our attention, right and left. Not whether our beer is too LGBTQ affirming or our (truly terrible) chicken sandwich is too homophobic.

But no. We are here, talking about a minor celebrity because the right has decided that this year, it hates transgender people. What a waste of a good boycott.