Why the Bud Light Boycott Worked

And the Fox News Boycott Won’t

A new favorite for target practice

Is the successful uprising against the Dylan Mulvaney ads for Bud Light a turning point in the culture wars?  It is certainly a moment of triumph that calls for a toast—and some further thoughts. 

In the two weeks after Bud Light launched its marketing campaign headlined by transgender “influencer” Dylan Mulvaney and provoked revulsion among many loyal customers, Anheuser-Busch sustained serious and undeniable corporate loss.  Sales of Bud Light fell by 23 percent and volume sold fell by 32 percent.  Overall, the volume of Bud Light sold in bars, restaurants and other venues declined by 35 percent.  Coors Light and Miller Lite gobbled up huge chunks of Bud Light’s former market share.  In just two weeks, Bud Light dropped from the number 3 draft beer nationally to number 4, swapping places with Coors Light.

Neutral beer-industry analysts described this sales hit as “staggering.”  The Anheuser-Busch marketing executives who masterminded the Mulvaney fiasco have taken leaves of absence.  The company is resorting to old-fashioned patriotic ads to try to stop the bleeding.

At the same time, another corporation popular with the Right, Fox News, has suffered its own public-relations debacle.  After agreeing to pay $788 million to settle a lawsuit enabled by leftist lawfare, Fox News promptly dumped its most popular host, Tucker Carlson, in an apparent attempt to mollify a rapacious Left.  Furious conservatives pledged to cancel their Fox Nation subscriptions and change the channel.  Fox Corporation’s stock declined significantly right after the Carlson announcement (then rebounded slightly).

The twin patriot boycotts of Bud Light and Fox News offer a useful juxtaposition of conservative efforts to punish misbehaving corporations.  Lately, the phrase “go woke, go broke” has become popular among right-leaning media and talking heads.  It has a nice ring to it, and it allows its advocates to profitably sell sunshine to patriots amidst a culture that, in fact, is utterly imploding from leftist aggression.  The truth about corporate wokeness is much harder to accept—but must be confronted so we can have more successful efforts such as the Bud Light counterattack.

“Go Woke, Go Broke” Is a Broad, Dangerous Falsehood

The slogan “go woke, go broke” is clever, comforting—and, unfortunately, clearly false.  By definition, if major corporations went broke by going woke, no major corporation would be woke—because they wouldn’t remain a major corporation for long.  Yet virtually every major corporation in America is woke, some worse than others.  That’s because the Left, having spent decades taking over academia and coopting there the future power brokers of the country, now control almost every major institution and can make life miserable for companies that don’t do their bidding.

Certain major corporations that are insanely woke have suffered some business setbacks of late.  We see headlines of Disney, Meta and others laying off employees and otherwise dealing with business downturns.  But such news today is true of companies across the board, as consumers reduce spending due to the inflation fueled by the easy-money policies of the Biden administration and, until recently, the Federal Reserve.  There is little evidence these companies are truly suffering long-term damage from being woke.  If they were, their shareholders would join forces and successfully demand changes in management or ownership—something that is not happening.  Some of these corporations face additional challenges specific to their industry.  Disney is dealing with the profit-shaving effects of streaming; Meta foolishly wasted much of its retained earnings on a virtual-reality boondoggle.  Still, their industry dominance and long-term health remain unchallenged.

The Bud Light boycott succeeded because offended customers were able to switch brands and purchase a readily available substitute of equal value and quality.  The campaign showed that if patriots choose their battles more carefully, they can prevail.

Why do large woke corporations remain largely unscathed despite persistent conservative criticism?  Quite simply, they have no meaningful competition in providing something that most people greatly want for their lives.  These corporations are monopolies or part of an oligopoly.  That allows them to get away with woke policies, which they adopt to satisfy the very powerful, noisy and vicious left-wing interest groups that demand them.

Conservative Boycotts Can Succeed

In contrast, the patriot-led boycott of Bud Light demonstrably worked, likely causing lasting damage to Anheuser-Busch.  Here we observed a specific event (the Mulvaney campaign), a direct customer reaction, and an immediate, resulting plunge in sales and profits.  The reason for this success is straightforward.

The Bud Light boycott succeeded because offended customers were able to switch brands and purchase a readily available substitute of equal value and quality.  Angry customers could order Coors or Miller easily, and that’s exactly what they did.  The history of boycotts, including conservative ones, shows that this is the factor that separates success from the many failures.  When people are required to make too great a sacrifice, forgoing an important part of their lives for which there is no reasonable and available substitute, the boycott fizzles out.  The Bud Light campaign showed that if patriots choose their battles more carefully, they can prevail.

Another good example is the rise and fall of Black Rifle Coffee.  After building an online brand catering to conservatives and patriots, the company distanced itself from its core customers upon announcing an initial public offering of stock.  Harsh comments by the company and its leaders about January 6 defendants and Kyle Rittenhouse (after he was pictured wearing a Black Rifle Coffee T-shirt upon posting bail) elicited howls of betrayal from the Right, sending the company into a deep tailspin from which one major analyst believes they probably cannot recover.  Like beer, coffee is readily available from many other comparable vendors, including upstart conservative companies wanting a piece of that market share.

Perhaps the best recent lesson on why conservative boycotts fail was the reaction to the expulsion of President Donald Trump from Facebook and Twitter.  When Trump was deplatformed after the 2020 elections, there was very little perceptible drop in membership or usage of those social media on the Right.  Conservatives sympathized with Trump and were outraged by the actions of these companies.  But they were not willing to pull the plug on something integral to their lives for a much less satisfying substitute.  When a monopoly or oligopoly controls something of great importance to people, the boycott will not stick. 

The travails of Fox News offer important instruction, as well.  Long before the Tucker Carlson imbroglio, the network overcame a far bigger foe:  President Trump.  On Election Day 2020, Fox called Arizona for Joe Biden when the outcome was still very much in doubt.  Trump and his supporters were enraged by this seemingly familiar establishment maneuver and went on the warpath.  Trump repeatedly lambasted the company through social media and praised its smaller rivals, Newsmax and One America News (OAN).  For a time, those networks rose in the ratings by poaching disaffected Fox viewers.  By January 2021, Fox News fell into third place among cable news broadcasters behind CNN and MSNBC.

Buoyed by its inherent advantages, Fox News eventually righted the ship.  The threat from Newsmax faded as Fox News regained its prior position by March 2021.  Ultimately, the wealth of the company afforded much broader news coverage, better known TV personalities, and higher production values that overwhelmed the competition (which struggled, very unfairly, merely to remain broadly available on TV).  Today, it is not hard to envision Fox simply replacing Carlson with a Matt Walsh or a Jason Whitlock and eventually emerging in basically the same position.

A Winning Boycott Strategy

How then do we deal with massive woke corporations that ignore us?  And how do we pick and execute winnable boycotts?

We must insist that elected officials enforce antitrust laws against the major social media and other corporations that practice woke tyranny.  Gaining such enforcement actions has always been a difficult undertaking, precisely because monopolies or quasi-monopolies by nature have the funds to hire the best lobbyists, influence-peddlers and other implements of political war.  MAGA leaders must make antitrust enforcement a priority so there is a level playing field that allows real alternatives to these biased behemoths to emerge and prosper.  Such policies should go with other reforms I’ve talked about here and here.

Instead of just popping off and announcing boycotts that are doomed to ultimate failure, conservative leaders should carefully select fights we can win.  When companies (1) endorse especially repugnant wokeness, (2) sell goods and services that patriots enjoy like everyone else, and (3) face competition offering comparable availability, value and quality, we should make an example of those offenders.  Bud Light misjudged their customer base of working-class men and got hammered.  We should be on the lookout for more such opportunities.

In a perfect world, people would make daily sacrifices on principle all the time and order their affairs accordingly.  That doesn’t happen.  Courage and commitment of that type are rare.  It’s better to pick a few fights we can win.  Instead of getting some press for launching yet another boycott to nowhere, responsible leaders should be scanning the horizon for fights we can win—and that deliver an impactful message to the corporate ministers of wokeness.