The bigots won, but it’s not enough.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) this week opened a Senate investigation into his allegations that Anheuser-Busch markets Bud Light to underage consumers in its ad featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
In a letter to Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth, Cruz and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) also asked the beer industry trade group Beer Institute, which Whitworth chairs, to conduct its own investigation. Or the company could say it’s sorry for any infraction and publicly disassociate from Mulvaney to avoid further inquiry, the senators wrote, making their actions appear more like a publicity stunt.
“We would urge you, in your capacity at Anheuser-Busch, to avoid a lengthy investigation by the Beer Institute by instead having Anheuser-Busch publicly sever its relationship with Dylan Mulvaney, publicly apologize to the American people for marketing alcoholic beverages to minors, and direct Dylan Mulvaney to remove any Anheuser-Busch content from his social media platforms.” (The letter repeatedly misgenders Mulvaney, who uses she-they pronouns.)
Mulvaney, a 26-year-old actor who chronicled her transition to a wide audience on TikTok, appeared in a one-off Instagram post promoting Bud Light for March Madness. She showed off a can with her likeness that the brand made especially for her.
As you’ve no doubt heard, the company caved and fired the ad execs who came up with the idea but that wasn’t good enough. They need more to keep the hate at fever pitch.
The hostility to transgender people is so extreme it makes my skin crawl at this point, particularly the thrill they all seem to get out of it. This primitive Lord of the Flies mentality is sick. Our culture is being twisted and degraded not by some trans girl on tik-tok, but by this depraved, bully-boy mentality that takes such joy in hurting vulnerable people.