RNC Event Features Bud Light Despite Ongoing Boycott
Following the decision by Bud Light executives to partner with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney for an online ad campaign, conservatives far and wide took part in a boycott that has been credited with trimming billions of dollars from parent company Anheuser-Busch’s value.
Although the backlash was swift and severe, it seems clear that not everyone on the right is united in their disdain for the company’s move.
The National Republican Congressional Committee, for example, initially posted a tweet slamming the decision and claiming that Bud Light “tastes like water,” but a short time later the post was quietly deleted.
More recently, images emerged from the Republican National Committee’s Spring Meeting that showed Bud Light was among the drinks being offered to attendees. Some reports indicated that the option was merely one of the beers stocked by the hosting hotel’s bar, but the mere suggestion that some RNC guests chose to consume it so soon after the Dylan Mulvaney incident prompted some criticism.
As Red State’s Nick Arama wrote: “Does the RNC leadership get where the base is coming from? Are they reading the room? Or are they truly that tone-deaf?”
For some in the GOP, however, it is more important to protect the flow of corporate cash into the party than to provide a united front against the effort to inject “woke” ideology into Bud Light’s marketing strategy.
In response to the NRCC’s decision to take down its critical tweet, one Republican insider posited that the organization “backtracked because they realized they were biting the hand that feeds them, and as soon as word gets around about that, why would anyone else give them big money in the future.”
Donald Trump Jr. made a similar argument in a video statement urging Republicans not to boycott the brand.
Noting that the company has a history of donating more to Republicans than Democrats, Trump Jr. said: “So, here’s the deal. Anheuser-Busch totally s— the bed with this Dylan Mulvaney thing. I’m not, though, for destroying an American, and iconic company for something like this.”
He went on to claim that the ”company itself doesn’t participate in the same leftist nonsense as the other big conglomerates.”
