Live From Inside the Conservative Bubble
In declaring war on Bud Light, conservatives once again demonstrate that they are deeply out of touch with American society.
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.
For those who follow me on Twitter, you might have noticed that yesterday I was obsessed with this tweet (for the record, I can no longer embed tweets in my Substack newsletter because Elon Musk is a) punitively targeting Substack and b) terrible at business).
Byron York is a political reporter for the Washington Examiner and a loyal water carrier for Republican politicians — so it’s not surprising he is jumping on the growing conservative outrage train regarding Bud Light’s decision to hire a trans Tik Tok influencer named Dylan Mulvaney to market their product. Ordinarily, York is not someone whose tweets I would take very seriously. But this one is worthy of note because it tells us something important about the ills of modern conservatism.
To get into the topic: a little backstory. Back in the day, when I was in the private sector, doing crisis communications and speechwriting, I worked on several airline accounts. This was in the mid-2000s when same-sex marriage was still illegal in most states, a Democratic president didn’t support it, and there was still a stigma in some parts of America about gay relationships ( I tell my kids about this era, and they have trouble believing me). I remember asking a colleague why airlines almost uniformly made such a big deal about their corporate image on gay issues. He looked at me like I was a moron and said, “Because a ton of their employees are gay.” In fact, by some estimates, more than half of male flight attendants are gay — and the number might have been even higher in the 70s and 80s.
The sensitivity to gay and lesbian issues was hardly restricted to airlines or companies with many LGBTQ employees. Even then, Fortune 500 companies realized that sensitivity to social issues and LGBTQ rights was essential for recruiting high-caliber employees and keeping them happy. Not only are there millions of gay Americans, but there are also millions more Americans with a gay child, a gay sibling, a gay parent, and a gay best friend — and millions of others who have basic empathy for all people, even if they are different from them. For those Americans who don’t live in a conservative bubble, they expect companies (particularly the ones they work for) to treat gay Americans with respect, acceptance, and equal rights.
Weird, right?
In the years since sensitivity to LGBTQ rights has expanded from a matter of employee relations to one that is essential to a company’s public image.
To many conservatives, attention to trans rights in popular culture is nothing more than a nod to the “woke left.” It’s a narrow issue for the Hollywood elite and liberal activists but not something “real Americans” care about. They don’t recognize that for younger generations (and older ones, too), LGBTQ rights and racial sensitivity are elemental to their core beliefs — and yes, it impacts their buying decisions. This is not rocket science. Companies are obsessed with their brand image — especially these days when it is so easy via social media for that image to be harmed by negative publicity. They adopt “woke” policies because it’s good for their bottom line.
Simply put, companies like Bud Light want to make their companies and brands appealing to these young people. Creating a brand relationship at a young age can build life-long brand loyalty. Bud Light, which has seen its market share significantly decline in recent years, is reaching out to the trans community not just because they want trans people to drink their product — they need to get young people to choose Bud Light (and, by and large, young people don’t view LGBTQ Americans in a negative light). Working with Dylan Mulvaney is a rather obvious effort to make their product appear cool and hip to a younger generation.
Here’s an interesting interview with Alissa Heinerscheid, a vice president of marketing at Bud Light, talking about the decline in Bud Light sales and the need to reinvigorate the brand by “attract(ing) young drinkers.” Not surprisingly, conservatives have been hate-tweeting this clip for days, but this is brand-building 101. It’s what companies constantly do to keep their brand fresh and current.
Indeed, the article York is quote-tweeting above is premised on the notion that companies marketing their products to the trans community are being intensely pressured to do so by shadowy and bullying do-gooder non-profits.
Executives at companies like Nike, Anheuser-Busch and Kate Spade, whose brand endorsements have turned controversial trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney into today’s woke “It girl,” aren’t just virtue signaling. They’re handing out lucrative deals to what were once considered fringe celebrities because they have to — or risk failing an all-important social credit score that could make or break their businesses. At stake is their Corporate Equality Index — or CEI — score, which is overseen by the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ+ political lobbying group in the world.
The article, which helpfully notes that HRC receives millions from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, ominously notes that a company “can lose CEI points if it doesn’t fulfill HRC’s demand for ‘integration of intersectionality in professional development, skills-based or other training” or if it doesn’t use a ‘supplier diversity program with demonstrated effort to include certified LGBTQ+ suppliers.’” James Lindsay, a right-wing podcaster is quoted as saying that HRC runs the CEI ranking “like an extortion racket, like the Mafia.”
This would be hilarious if it weren’t so profoundly symbolic of how out-of-touch modern conservatism has become with contemporary American society. For York, Lindsay, and other conservatives, who view trans people with open hostility and consider the movement for trans rights as yet another manifestation of the “woke left,” it is inexplicable that any major company would willingly market their products with a trans spokesman.
The only explanations are a) “insanity” or b) these companies are being blackmailed by some all-powerful interest group backed by George Soros. They can’t imagine this is a proactive business decision based on a keen understanding of modern demographics. It never seems to occur to them that companies keep doing this type of marketing — and conservatives keep responding with howls of protest — because it’s good business.
It’s not that York and others are opposed to Bud Light using a trans spokesperson (they are, but that’s not the key issue). They don’t understand why it’s being done!
In the hermetically conservative bubble where they reside, such business decisions are “insane” because it means ignoring the viewpoints of conservative Americans. It never occurs to them that for younger generations (and older ones, too), LGBTQ rights and racial sensitivity are elemental to their core beliefs. Or that for a company to adopt York's worldview would mean shutting itself off from a crucially important demographic segment.
Conservatives like to think of themselves as real Americans, and the “woke left,” who obsesses over trans rights, are the marginalized minority group forcing their views on the majority. But, in fact, it’s the other way around — conservatives are the minority who have failed to acclimate themselves to all the ways in which the world is changing.
One More Thing …
The right’s unhinged jihad against Bud Light is even more effectively captured by this “news article” in Fox News.
Consumers nationwide revolted against the nation's top-selling beer brand after it stepped "recklessly" into the culture wars last week with its new spokesperson, transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney, according to bar owners and beer-industry experts around the country.
"I think society flexes it muscles sometimes and reminds manufacturers that the consumer is still in charge," Jeff Fitter, owner of Case & Bucks, a restaurant and sports bar in Barnhart, Missouri, told FOX Business.
"In Bud Light's effort to be inclusive, they excluded almost everybody else, including their traditional audience."
He cited sports fans, working people and women as loyal Bud Light consumers the brand suddenly excluded in its race to go woke.
Let’s first imagine how pathetic — and full of hate a person must be — to get this upset about a beer company using a trans spokesperson. Like, honestly, WGAF?
But the notion that there are no “sports fans, working people and women” who are LGBTQ or are supportive of trans rights says so much about how modern conservatives have shut themselves off from the larger elements of American society. In their worldview, “working people” all think as they do — and that any effort to reach out to people who are different is an attack on them.
*To be clear, no one should read this post as an endorsement of Bud Light, which is genuinely terrible beer.
What’s Going On
This is an excellent deep dive into the awful court decision last week reversing the FDA’s 20-year-old approval of the abortion pill. I am reasonably confident that if the Supreme Court hears this case on appeal, they will overrule the decision.
Interesting read about the nearly 40-year-old failed IRA bombing attack that nearly wiped out the British government.
Kind of a big deal … “The Biden administration is planning some of the most stringent auto pollution limits in the world, designed to ensure that all-electric cars make up as much as 67 percent of new passenger vehicles sold in the country by 2032.” I think this also explains why the Biden Administration agreed to open up land in Alaska for oil drilling. As the article notes, these new EPA standards will lessen the demand for oil. We’ll see, but still, it’s a big deal that Biden is proposing this.
Ruth Marcus is appropriately angry about the abortion pill decision.
Dan Balz has a good roundup of the week that was in bat-shit-crazy Republican politics.
Musical Interlude/This Week in Bob Dylan
This is a fantastic cover of “The Times They Are A-Changin’” … like goosebumps-inducing great.
Your link on the deep dive is broken.
Great post!
Highly suggest listening to this podcast--and asking more questions about whatever version of this situation might be playing out here. Great journalism here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p09yjmph?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile