On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump used his social media platform Truth Social to call for the end of the boycott of Anheuser-Busch and Bud Light. There is speculation about why Trump did this, including the fact that a lobbyist for Anheuser-Bush is reportedly holding a fundraiser for him next month. In his post, the president cited a variety of reasons for ending the boycott, but none of them make sense.
He noted that Anheuser-Busch employs many people, including some veterans, but this is hardly unique. Any company of this size will invariably employ veterans and make donations to respectable charitable organizations. He also claimed Anheuser-Busch is not a woke company, even though they exploited a mentally ill transgender activist and celebrated his affinity for women’s clothing with no respect whatsoever for basic decency, the truth, or their customer’s values. Anheuser-Busch never publicly acknowledged what it did wrong. If that’s not a woke company, please tell me what is.
Trump pointed out that there are more egregious examples of corporate wokeness. He’s right, but the fact that there are companies worse than Anheuser-Busch does not negate their sins. If such thinking were taken to its logical conclusion, only one boycott could ever exist, and it would target the most woke company in America while every other woke company got a pass simply because they’re not the absolute worst. This would be a misguided approach, to say the least.
Abandoning the Bud Light boycott would be a catastrophic error in the culture war. Whenever boycotts are announced, I’m always skeptical of their chances for success, mostly because there is no reliable pattern as to whether corporate boycotts triumph or fail. But the Bud Light boycott has something going for it that most other boycotts do not: It involves a product conservatives can easily live without. In my estimation, the success of any given boycott can be accurately predicted by how much effort is required to maintain it. With Bud Light, the bar is low — this should be a layup for conservatives.
I’m no beer connoisseur, but Bud Light is not exactly a top-shelf brew, and, more importantly, the market is filled with countless other nearly identical beers. If this boycott fails, it is safe to assume most future corporate boycotts will eventually fail. We must pick our battles. It’s difficult to boycott companies that provide services or products necessary to live and function in modern society (e.g., banks and credit card companies). Because of how ubiquitous leftism has become, the only way to boycott every leftist company would be to live primitively and completely off the grid in the middle of the wilderness.
The Bud Light boycott is a litmus test. If conservatives cannot maintain a boycott that requires virtually no effort on their behalf, then the rot of corporate leftism will continue to spread. What conservatives do next will send a message to corporations and politicians. Make no mistake — they’re watching closely. Whether conservatives continue this boycott will be determined by our will and our commitment to the truth.
If Anheuser-Busch wants this boycott to end, the solution is rather simple: Issue a public statement acknowledging that men cannot become women. The fact that any company would hesitate to do this in the first place proves that corporate leftism threatens even the most basic truths. This is not the time to surrender — and Trump needs to understand that more than anyone.
B.L Hahn is a freelance writer covering topics including culture, politics and economics.
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