Against Indulgences

Like Justice Kavanaugh, I like beer. My go to national beers tend to be Miller Lite and Yuengling. I’ll go for a Coors Light and a Shiner Bock too. My friends all know if Anheuser-Busch products are the only available option, I’ll go with water or a Coke. I do not like Budweiser or Bud Light, or even really Michelob Ultra. I never have.

When I go to Las Vegas to root for the Golden Knights, I have a Coke. Only Anheuser-Busch products are sold there. At the TeePee, when I go to a Braves game, I can choose between Yuengling, Miller Lite, Coors Light, and some of the great local beers in Atlanta.

Regardless of my beer preference, only one of the brands chose to celebrate a transgender activist’s transition the week another transgender activist killed six Christians in Nashville and a second transgender activist plotted mass murder in Colorado.

Anheuser-Busch did that. Conservatives roundly criticized the company and Bud Light. We understand brands embrace June as Pride Month and turn their logos to the rainbow flag. We understand the gay community is a large market they wish to cater to.

But if you don’t get why celebrating a dude pretending to be a woman the week a transgender activist killed six Christians is a bad idea, I can’t help you. On top of that, the head of marketing celebrated the change and cast aspersions on what she perceived had been Bud Light’s core consumers.

The reaction from the right and middle clearly had a deleterious impact on Anheuser-Busch’s bottom line. So the company decided to use its indulgence.

Back in medieval times, priests would sell indulgences to people as a get-out-of-purgatory card in exchange for money to build churches. In modern times, the left pays indulgences in the form of carbon offsets so they can keep flying their private jets.

Anheuser-Busch’s indulgence is political donations to the GOP.

After the company’s CEO issued a non-apology apology that was so generic you’d be forgiven for thinking ChatGPT had written it, Donald Trump, Jr. declared conservatives should forgive the brand because the brand gives so much more to the GOP than the Democrats. The National Republican Congressional Committee deleted its attacks on Bud Light too.

Conservatives now have to decide if their values are for sale.

Only Anheuser-Busch and Nike decided to join Kamala Harris in celebrating Dylan Mulvaney the week a trans activist murdered six children. Of the three, only Anheuser-Busch’s marketing gal then decided to heap burning coals with insults toward Bud Light’s existing consumers as she embraced a new, trendy demo. She still has her job.

Are you for sale?

Donald Trump, Jr. seems to think your values have a price tag. Anheuser-Busch does too.

It’s up to you to decide what your price is. But, when you see Donald Trump, Jr., the NRCC, and other Republicans suddenly declare Bud Light safe to drink, and you see Fox News using female pronouns when discussing Dylan Mulvaney, at least understand that your bellyaching about the left’s advance in culture is owed, in part, to the very people and institutions you embrace.