A lot of right-wing commentators and country singers believe that Anheuser-Busch gravely insulted them when the beer company sent a Bud Light can to transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney with her face on it.
In a movement started by Kid Rock, and championed by country singers including Travis Tritt and Big & Rich's John Rich, people have boycotted the company's beer because they disliked it being marketed to the LGBTQ+ community. The boycott started with Kid Rock shooting up cases of Bud Light in a social media post and has gotten even more crass than the singer ending his video with "F*** Bud Light and f*** Anheuser-Busch.”
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That has led to a massive boycott which has caused Bud Light to lose about 30% of its sales. It has also led to crude attacks on Mulvaney overtaking every post the beer brand makes on social media. There are, of course, some people who stopped drinking the beer not because of the Mulvaney deal, but because of comments the brand's former vice president made calling the beer's drinkers "fratty."
Those people, however, appear to be the minority as most of the social media posts in response to Bud Light tend to use gay and transgender slurs. Podcast host Joe Rogan, however, who generally leans very right-wing, has a very different take on the issue and his response has infuriated far-right podcaster and former Fox News star Megyn Kelly.
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Joe Rogan Has a Unique Take On the Bud Light Scandal
Country singer Zach Bryan, who has openly mocked the anti-transgender campaign against the Anheuser-Busch (BUD) -) joined Rogan's "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast Aug. 1.
“I’ve drank Budweiser and Bud Light for, like, my entire adult life,” Bryan told Rogan this week. “And then on Twitter, I defended my sister’s spouse, and people were like -- people were pissed... and I was like, I didn’t mean to do this. It was crazy.”
Bryan has shared on Twitter that he has "family transitioning" and that he has "blood to defend here."
Rogan did not exactly express his support for the transgender community in his podcast, but he did call the culture war over the beer "goofy," the Daily Beast reported.
“And we’re drinking Bud Lights, ladies and gentlemen. Sorry. There’s nothing wrong with it,” he said. “People are so silly. We were just talking about silliness. One person made a really stupid decision, and now everybody’s decided that Bud Light is the enemy. But that’s, like, this thing that people do in America, where they just decide, ‘Now I hate these people. These people are the enemy.’”
Megyn Kelly Goes After Rogan
Megyn Kelly, speaking on her podcast, took issue with Rogan also giving air to an openly anti-transgender guest far-right commentator Andrew Klavan
“Joe Rogan [is] on the wrong side on this one -- popping open a Bud Light, dismissing the whole controversy,” she said.
Kelly also did not push back when Klavan openly called transgender people an attack on women. He basically accused Rogan of not being committed enough to boycotting the beer as a way to protest the existence of transgender people
"So they always think it's over, they think it's finished. There’s no coming back. Just gimme my Bud Light and shut up. No! This time, they spotted this, they’ve spotted this transgender movement as an attack on femininity an attack on femaleness, which is exactly what it is. It’s an attempt to destroy the very existence of women.”
Kelly did not challenge that reasoning and instead called for an apology from Anheuser-Busch for its clumsy attempts at inclusivity with Mulvaney.
"The guy has never apologized. He’s never owned up to it. The CEO of Anheuser-Busch, he’s not sorry at all. He’s only sorry that it turned into a controversy for him,” she added.
