Trump Breaks Silence on Bud Light Controversy with 3 Words That Americans Have Made Anheuser-Busch Understand
There are three words that Bud Light would have done well to remember before the Dylan Mulvaney controversy — “Money does talk.” If there weren’t enough Americans reminding them of that fact already, former president Donald Trump also jumped into the fray over the weekend.
Breaking his silence on the matter via his platform Truth Social, Trump wrote that it is “time to beat the Radical Left at its own game” — starting with boycotting (and buy-cotting) companies that take political stands depending on where they fall.
Trump used the opportunity to link to a book by conservative radio personality and Trump backer Wayne Allyn Root, “The Great Patriot Buy-cott Book: The Great Conservative Companies to Buy From & Invest In.”
“It’s time to beat the Radical Left at their own game,” Trump said.
“Money does talk—Anheuser-Busch now understands that.”
Trump had previously been silent on the boycott of the most popular beer brand in America.
On April 18, RealClearPolitics noted the boycott — which began after the company’s woke social media campaign featuring transgender “influencer” Dylan Mulvaney — “may also soon be a litmus in the divide between the GOP establishment and social conservatives ahead of a contentious presidential primary.
“Several candidates tell RealClearPolitics they back the boycott. Nikki Haley, for instance, said the Bud Light campaign ‘makes a mockery of women.’ Others in the GOP wish the controversy would just go away already.”
Two days earlier, Donald Trump Jr., however, had spoken out against the boycott, highlighting Anheuser-Busch InBev’s history of conservative political donations while acknowledging the company had “s*** the bed” with the Mulvaney campaign.
Insider hypothesized one reason the former president himself was silent on the matter — namely, that he owned up to $5 million in Anheuser-Busch stock. However, that’s pretty much pocket change for the billionaire, no matter how much money he might have lost out on during his time in the Oval Office.
Whatever the case, the boycott isn’t going away anytime soon — and it’s having an impact.
Retail store sales of Bud Light were down on the week of April 22 by a staggering 21 percent, with other light beers picking up the slack. It’s bad enough that, according to a May 2 report in The Wall Street Journal, Anheuser-Busch gave away cases of Bud Light to employees at distributors,
Of course, when there’s a segment of customers who you couldn’t give Bud Light away to, free cases aren’t necessarily going to help the product in the short term. The company is betting on this being just that — a short-term problem — but Bud Light has become a kind of shorthand for woke corporate policies that are terminally out-of-touch with a company’s customer base.
And now, naturally, the company faces backlash from the other side, as LGBT-aligned institutions are going after the brand for failing to stick by Mulvaney. Several gay bars in Chicago reportedly refuse to stock Anheuser-Busch InBev’s drinks and other gay bar owners have expressed frustration with the company.
Of course, this could have all been avoided if the team behind the Mulvaney advertisement had decided against wading into politics entirely, but this is a concept alien to many companies in 2023; it’s not if they’re going to go woke, but when and how.
However, try as one might, there is one concept that remains stubbornly fixed: money and the profit motive. Trump is right: Money does talk, which is why Anheuser-Busch InBev and its executives have been desperately trying to talk/advertise their way out of this mess. A short sampler of the pander-fest:
— Anheuser-Busch (@AnheuserBusch) April 14, 2023
— Budweiser (@budweiserusa) April 14, 2023
And now, Anheuser-Busch’s CEO is now claiming that the boycott surrounding the Mulvaney advertisement has been based around “misinformation,” telling investors on an earnings call last week “that this was one can, one influencer, one post and not a campaign.”
Helpful for him to finally clear that up with the boycott almost a month old. I guess he forgot to mention it before then.
Those are three words that Americans have made Anheuser-Busch understand: “Money does talk.”
The former president, a successful businessman, understands that principle very well, too. You can bet there are a lot of executives looking on who now better understand how that principle works, as well.
Maybe they’ll know enough to, at the very least, keep their mouths shut when it comes to politics.
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