Even drinking a beer is an innocent act in America.
As American as the brand is and has as many patriotic connotations as Budweiser, even sharing a beer has become a confrontation. And this is not an alcoholic poisoning – the product is light –, nor a wild drunkenness, nor an alcoholic coma, nor a health issue.
The legacy of Trumpism has given rise to a fever to ban the reading of books or to criminalize cabaret shows.
At least 26 proposed laws have been introduced so far in 2023 in 14 states, whose legislatures are dominated by Republicans, against drag queen shows. It is a prohibitionist movement that has emerged this year as a conservative reaction to the expansion of the rights of the LGTBQ group.
But as analysts point out, few events so perfectly capture the divisive cultural, political and social toxicity in the US as the so-called great Bud Light bust.
The earthquake has its starting point at the beginning of April. Bud Light, which is part of the Anheuser-Busch conglomerate (today in Belgian hands), sent transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney a package of its product to celebrate the first anniversary of her transition.
Mulvaney, 26, has more than ten million followers on TikTok and her Days of girlhood video series has surpassed one billion views. In October, he spoke with President Joe Biden about transgender rights.
The gift package contained personalized branded cans with illustrations of Mulvaney's face, which she took it upon herself to spread in a video on Instagram. As soon as it got out, the bombshell. "It radically changed the sale of beer and the price of shares overnight, literally, after the conservative boycott spread from bar to bar," described the portal Axios.
Anti-transgender anger spread like wildfire in right-wing media and social media, outraged at what they saw as a betrayal, while Republican leaders tried to put out the fire and protect one of the party's biggest donors.
As of Tuesday, according to the NewsWhip database, 5,600 articles had been published about this controversy, with more than six million interactions.
The most shared articles were those published in the ultra media, the main propagators of the viral virulence against a company recognizably positioned in favor of conservatives. The protest featured personalities such as Ben Shapiro, with 5.5 million followers on Twitter, or Kid Rock, who uploaded a video in which he shot cans of Bud Light to call for a boycott. The matter led to an internal war. Donald Trump jr., who if he learned anything from his father is that you can't bite the hand that feeds you, took a position on Twitter against attacking the brewing company. He said his colleagues had embarked on a campaign he described as "shoot first and aim later".
Without it serving as a precedent, many of the promoters of the contempt for this brand shot at the son of the former president. They also attacked the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) for too quickly deleting a tweet thanking Mulvaney: "We can finally admit that Bud Light tastes like water."
The economic impact caused Anheuser-Busch to issue a statement of apology, in which they remembered their 165 years of service, and to issue a new announcement this week. A horse travels through iconic places in the country, while a solemn voice is heard. "This is a bigger story than beer - he says - this is a story of the American spirit".
The company's shares have risen. The next round, at the expense of the house.
