For a political organization, nothing says “we played ourselves” quite like being forced to retreat from a position you never should have held to begin with.
That’s the exact scenario Republicans find themselves in today after many of them spent weeks throwing a tantrum over — of all things — beer ads.
In the last month, conservatives have raged over Bud Light’s brand partnership with actor and social media influence Dylan Mulvaney. The mere fact that Bud Light did business with Mulvaney, a trans woman, and depicted her on one of their promotional cans was enough to move many conservatives to call for people to “boycott Bud Light” and its parent company, Anheuser-Busch. That is, until last week, when many conservatives apparently learned Anheuser-Busch is a major donor to Republicans.
Oops.
One of the most public people to bow down to Bud Light was professional troll Donald Trump Jr., who on Thursday told listeners of his podcast that the right-wing reaction was an example of conservatives’ tendency for “shooting first and aiming second.”
Trump said his staff researched Anheuser-Busch’s political giving and found the company’s employees and political action committee gave more to Republicans than Democrats.
“That’s literally almost unheard of in corporate America, where it’s really easy to go woke, where they do so constantly, where there’s a consequence to actually being a conservative,” Trump claimed, saying the conservative donations are “kind of a big deal.”
Setting aside the fact that Trump’s portrayal of corporate America as a bastion of liberalism is completely false, note what he’s admitting here. He and others are saying Republicans should flaunt their purportedly principled transphobia, except when doing so defies rich donors who ply the conservative movement with cash.
You know: bigotry, but make it capitalistic.
Trump’s call for what was effectively a truce with Anheuser-Busch was met with predictable anger…
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