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NRCC launches anti-Bud Light campaign, yanks it when someone realizes Anheuser-Busch is major donor [1]

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Date: 2023-04-16  

The National Republican Congressional Committee provided a new example of that on Saturday when they attempted to launch a new fundraising campaign blasting Bud Light, after conservative media sites melted the entire fudge down over a minor Bud Light sponsorship of trans "influencer" Dylan Mulvaney.

"Thanks to Dylan Mulvaney, we can all finally admit that Bud Light tastes like water. With our new koozie’s, you can make sure no one confuses Bud Light with real beer ever again," the NRCC tweeted on Saturday. The tweet linked to a WinRed-based fundraising campaign promising a "Limited Edition Design" beer koozie mimicking Bud Light's branding but with "THIS BEER IDENTIFIES AS WATER" where the logo would be. Take that, Bud Light! That'll teach you to, uh, pay a trans influencer to promote your product in exchange for cash.

Or not. The Daily Beast reports that "shortly" after the tweet was posted, the NRCC deleted it—and that as of Saturday afternoon, the whole fundraising pitch had been yanked from view.

Wondering why that might be? Oh, it's quite possibly because Bud Light parent company Anheuser-Busch and its employees donated NEARLY HALF A MILLION FLIPPIN' DOLLARS to the NRCC during the 2022 elections. Whoops. Oh, I cannot even imagine the conversation that probably took place when the NRCC's higher-ups learned that their staff had themed a whole fundraising campaign around bashing one of their major donors. But it probably involved throwing things!

Now, this was an inexplicably premised marketing campaign to begin with. It's not clear what sort of anti-trans Republican chud would specifically want a beer koozie mocking, uh, their own beer; was the idea that these Republicans couldn't possibly commit themselves to the Fox News-fueled Bud Light boycott but would show their solidarity by still buying the stuff—and slapping a rude koozie over it? This wasn't destined to be a winning fundraising message from the outset.

But the panicked NRCC scrubbing of the campaign probably had more to do with the half million dollars Anheuser-Busch had provided them. Oh, and Donald Trump Jr.'s announcement that conservatives shouldn't be boycotting the company. And then there's Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' approach, which has been to keep his mouth shut—which may or may not be enough to keep donor Anheuser-Busch off his back.

In short, the NRCC screwed up big-time on this one, and it's likely Republican corporate sponsors are again going to have to recalculate whether sponsoring Republicanism and its hate campaigns are truly worth whatever regulatory and tax cuts they think they can trade for the money. The Daily Beast quotes one anonymous GOP operative who speculates on that: "I assume they backtracked because they realized they were biting the hand that feeds them, and as soon as word gets around about that, why would anyone else give them big money in the future?"

Yes, well. Why would any of these corporations be giving money now, after Republican elected officials have repeatedly singled out corporations like the Walt Disney Company and sought to do them maximum harm, after those companies committed some perceived cultural sin against them?

Republicans haven't been shy about targeting corporations for retaliation. The NRCC has considerably better self-preservation instincts than Ron DeSantis does, however; they're perfectly aware that Republican anti-trans fervor is a marketing campaign, not a Deeply Held Belief.

And as a marketing campaign, it's certainly not worth losing a half a million bucks over.

RELATED STORIES:

Murdoch's Fox News empire has launched an all-out war against the makers of Bud Light

Buy $35 beer to make woke libs mad: The sad state of the conservative culture war

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/16/2164242/-NRCC-launches-anti-Bud-Light-campaign-yanks-it-when-someone-realizes-Anheuser-Busch-is-major-donor

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