Of Course The Washington Post Gets the Bud Light Story Completely Wrong

Thank you dear readers for putting up with my harping on a poor business decision by a bad beer. A month ago I asked Why Did Bud Light Choose to Follow the Hershey Highway to Hell? Then about three weeks ago I pointed out that Budweiser Has a Path to Redemption – Will they Take It? My suggestion still holds. And InBev has been taking small steps I’d suggested, but not enough. Then two weeks ago I asked another question, Is Bud Light The Battle of Midway in The Culture War? Yeah, intellectually I’ve fallen pretty far from a decade ago when I was writing the Economics for Politicians series. While we’ve lost the war on the federal debt (nobody will take us seriously until we go off the fiscal cliff), the culture war that got us to this point has become just as important, if on a different level. So for the time being, this is where my head resides. And The Washington Post is its usual clueless self when it comes to The Culture War.

I wouldn’t have even noticed these stories if it weren’t for Sister Babe’s insistence on subscribing to The Washington Compost’s Sunday paper, which has a bad habit of giving me great blog fodder. And it will shock nobody that their weighing in on the Bud Light gets it completely wrong. The article in today’s paper tries to wave away Bud Light’s drop in sales to… competition from Mexico. Yes, for real. As one commenter perfectly pointed out, the several charts embedded in the post to give their assertions credibility conveniently end right where the story starts. But that’s not what inspired this post. It’s actually the stupidity that was spouted in the previous week’s edition.

The article in The Washington Compost (TWC) starts with a bar owner’s tale:

The owner of Florence, Ky.-based Smokin This and That BBQ had noticed patrons were bickering over the beverage — a longtime customer favorite.

After the brand partnered with transgender actress and comedian Dylan Mulvaney, Cummins said, it became a source of tension in his restaurant.

“Actress and comedian”? I’m not being sarcastic when I say that all that I’ve seen of Dylan Mulvaney are a few short, creepy YouTube / TikTok shorts. Usually being and actress or comedian would involve seeing a few acting roles or comedy clips. This is TWC, so we know better than to expect actual journalism. The story goes on to recount the back story before diving head first into getting things wrong.

While Bud Light’s partnership with Mulvaney represented a veritable baby step in altering the brand’s identity, the backlash it provoked reflects “the dark side of social media for brands,” according to Angeline Close Scheinbaum, associate professor of marketing at Clemson University.

“The brand was likely aiming for inclusivity but received backlash from parts of the consumer base that felt alienated,” Scheinbaum said.

“inclusive” has become possibly one of the most Orwellian terms of our time. While The Radical Left genuinely believes it to mean its dictionary definition, when they use it it’s come to mean, “promoting our most radical elements to shame the Normals to accept our gross behavior”. Nobody ever suggested excluding freaks from drinking Bud Light. So now it’s time for TWC to dive into outright lies:

The fracas around Bud Light’s partnership with Mulvaney is unfolding as anti-transgender legislation is on the rise across the country. In 2023, Republican state legislators have advanced dozens of pieces of legislation seeking to restrict transgender people’s access to health care, sports and public accommodations, and prohibit the ability to change a person’s name or gender on a driver’s license or birth certificate.

Transgender Americans experience stigma and systemic inequality in many aspects of their lives, according to a wide-ranging poll from The Washington Post and the KFF. In the survey, 63 percent of transgender adults reported that they “sometimes” or “frequently” feel discriminated against because of their gender identity or expression.

First off, there is no “anti-transgender legislation”. If you’re an adult who’s unfortunate enough to have your brain chemistry not match your body’s, nobody is stopping you from making choices over yourself. While we put up with your demands that we celebrate you, you crossed the line when you came after our children. Laws protecting our kids from creeps who want to mutilate them are actually “anti-psyco”.

Next, we Normals are not trying to “restrict transgender people’s access to health care, sports, and public accommodations, and prohibit the ability to change a person’s name or gender on a driver’s license or birth certificate”:

• Stop using the word “care” to describe self-mutilation.
• “Sports” – No, men don’t have the “right” to beat up women in sporting events or to steal their scholarships
• “Public accommodations” – Sorry, but the same creep who flashes a bunch of little girls waiting for a school bus doesn’t transform into a civil rights leader by doing it in the women’s locker room for a public swimming pool
• As for your legal documents, there’s no nice way to say this, but you are who you are. You don’t get to legally force the government and us Normals to play along.

TWC went on to cite A-B’s first Non-Apology where they tried to guilt us Normals by citing military service and scolding us that our walking away was hurting their rank and file employees. Next up is the brave bar in Indiana that stuck up against us Normals by supporting Bud Light:

Even though cans featuring Mulvaney were never available for public purchase, McKinley Minniefield, owner of the Fairfax Bar and Grill in Bloomington, Ind., said some patrons were heckling those who ordered Bud Light and saying hateful things about transgender people. It got so extreme that some customers left the restaurant.

I’d be interested to hear what specific “hateful things about transgender people” were overheard. Like not mutilating children, perhaps? We then get a few paragraphs of how the bar bravely drove out the Normals to attract new Woke customers. What TWC left out was the part where Fairfax Bar lost enough business to where they were begging for the Normals to return. And it gets better. Or worse, depending on your level of intelligence:

Altering a brand’s identity can come at a cost when changes clash with existing consumers’ expectations, as Anheuser-Busch has seen, according to Lauran Star, a workplace inclusion psychologist. Had the company gone further and featured Mulvaney in an ad or sold cans with her image in stores “there could be violence” or “massive boycotting,” Star said.

“I think if they’d waded a little deeper into the pool, the U.S. culture isn’t ready for that,” Star said. “This is them dipping a toe in the water and gauging reaction.”

First off, “Lauran Star, a workplace inclusion psychologist”. Heh. Yeah, among the many DEI layoffs in the Biden* economy, I’m pretty sure that Workplace Inclusion Psychologists are among the first to go to the wall. I like how Star suggests there could be “violence or massive boycotting”, somehow putting actual (nonexistent) violence on the same level as quietly not buying a product that hates us Normals. But Star is damned right that “the U.S. culture isn’t ready for that”.

The article goes on to gloss over the backlash, cites an LGBQWERTY activist upset that AB hasn’t pushed harder, then talks about the long-term unsuccessful “Buycott” of Goya over its support for us Normals. Naturally, it ignores the major differences of the A-B situation.

And in one final flourish to TWC’s intellectual dishonesty, the article concludes with a short, snarky paragraph citing how in the “past month” the company’s stock had risen 5.3 percent. Yes, TWC conveniently inserts a bunch of graphs to give the illusion of credibility for the data behind its claims. Except for the fact that the starting point of the stock price is far removed from current sales numbers.

We’re at the end of the TWC’s version events, and to close to I have two stories to share outside of this post. Yes, I know there have been a number of side stories, such as how Red Sox fans are boycotting Bud Light, or how The Gaystapo are boycotting A-B for not being pro-mutilation enough. But I’ll leave you with a deeper dive into how A-B’s corporate structure alllowed this to happen.

To close out on a lighter note, here is a video of Joe Rogan ripping on A-B’s first stupid non-apology ad.

Bud Light is running away from Dylan Mulvaney faster than an 8-year-old from Joe Biden.

— Anthony (@Antman0528) May 7, 2023

Anheuser-Busch/Bud Light are being banned from gay bars in Chicago because of their flip flopping. At some point they will learn to stay out of social issues pic.twitter.com/NT9uYXFDkJ

— • ᗰISᑕᕼIᗴᖴ ™ • (@4Mischief) May 7, 2023

Bud Light is done pic.twitter.com/hZpO5oX326

— wilder😎🇺🇸 (@wilderpatriot) May 4, 2023

Bros Drinking Cosmos Laugh At Friend Ordering Bud Light https://t.co/qC1JL5p5ZB pic.twitter.com/NNbnJoWYY5

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) May 7, 2023

Brother Bob is no longer on Facebook (although you can see his archives there), and is back on Twitter again, but is ramping up on Minds and Gab, as well as Parler and GETTR, and has his biggest presence on MeWe.

Cross posted from Brother Bob’s Blog

Brother Bob

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