If you’re on the Right, then you know that the phrase “this is why we lose” has become something of a cliche. Anytime anyone on our side does anything we don’t like, we are bound to declare “this is why we lose,” as if that person is now a symbol for America’s cultural decline. In many cases, the “this is why we lose” charge can be off base, or at least overwrought and overstated. But not always.
So today we begin with an actual case of “this is why we lose.”
Over the past few days, there has been, seemingly out of nowhere, a full-court press by some on the Right to rehabilitate Bud Light and convince conservatives to drop the boycott of the company. Now, we know that some notable figures on this side of the aisle were never on board with the boycott in the first place. Famously, Donald Trump Jr. defended the beer maker from the beginning, saying Bud Light is on our side, despite appearances, and we shouldn’t punish them for their brief foray into trans propaganda. But Trump Jr. and others in that orbit were alone in their pro-Bud Light stance for many months, until just now.
This week, both UFC president Dana White and Kid Rock appeared in interviews with Tucker Carlson to declare their renewed support for Bud Light. Some other prominent voices, like Tim Pool, have come out to defend their position.
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In fairness to these guys, we will go through these clips one-by-one so you can hear their arguments for yourself.
First, here’s Dana White:
I’ll have plenty to say about the thrust of Dana’s argument after we play all of the clips, but I do want to point out one thing right away. Bud Light is a brand owned by a foreign conglomerate. Putting everything else aside, it’s very hard to make the case that it’s “patriotic” to support a foreign company. I’m not saying we can’t support foreign-owned brands. After all that’s most brands. I’m just saying it’s hard to cast your support for a Belgian multinational corporation as patriotic.
But we’ll get back to Dana’s point in a moment. First, here’s Kid Rock, also with Tucker, agreeing with Dana:
Many people — myself certainly included — have found Kid Rock’s reasoning here less than compelling.
But Tim Pool thinks that we’re all missing the point:
Now, before I explain why this is all horribly wrong, let me begin by stipulating that I like all of these guys. I like Dana White and Kid Rock. Tim Pool’s show is great and I like him personally. I’m obviously a huge fan and supporter of Tucker Carlson and I think he’s one of the most important voices in the country right now. But the Bud Light boycott is still on, and let me explain why.
Bud Light — the foreign-owned brand — tried to push trans ideology. It spat in the face of its own customers. For once in our lives — for once, ever, in modern American history — conservatives fought back in an organized, competent, effective way. We organized a boycott and we stuck with it. We actually made the woke company feel the pain. We imposed our will in a way conservatives have never been able to do.
The Bud Light boycott is by far (and It’s not close) the most effective conservative boycott of a major company of all-time. There isn’t even a close second. In fact, it’s fair to say this is not just the most effective but actually the only successful boycott we’ve ever staged.
We’d have to have a very compelling strategic reason to end this one single successful boycott campaign. We would have to have extracted some kind of major concession. But what concession have they made? They gave Dana White $100 million. So what? That’s not a concession, that’s not an apology — that’s a marketing ploy. Are we going to end the Bud Light boycott and start giving them our money because we like their new marketing plan? That wouldn’t be us ending a boycott victoriously. That would be a retreat. It would be the very definition of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Something the Right does very often, but never as egregiously and pathetically as this.
Now, as with any boycott campaign, I do agree that you need to give companies an out. You have to give them a way to get back in your good graces. The whole point of a boycott is that you’re withholding support in order to extract some kind of concession. If you get the concession, you win. And if you don’t get the concession then the company is just destroyed, and you win that way. So far we are winning the second way. Bud Light betrayed its customers, it has not conceded defeat, and so the entire company is in shambles. So be it.
What can Bud Light do to get out of this? What’s their out?
Well, they would need to apologize for pushing transgenderism. They would need to apologize specifically and explicitly. They would need to grovel at our feet, in humiliating fashion, and disavow gender ideology entirely. That’s what they would have to do. They haven’t done that. They refuse to do that. Instead, they are hoping they can simply change the subject. But a change of subject is not a concession. It’s not an apology. It’s a trick, a gimmick, a diversion tactic. If we fall for it then we deserve to lose. We deserve everything that’s coming.
Here’s the point. If you are boycotting a company and demanding some kind of concession, and you don’t get the concession, and then you back down anyway — you lose. You have taken your victory and traded it in, in exchange for a defeat. You have said, “No thanks, I’d rather not win. I’ll take a loss instead.”
That’s what it would be if we start supporting Bud Light now. They haven’t apologized. They haven’t conceded. So, screw them. Let them wither and die. Let their brand destroy itself. Let it burn. That’s what they’ve chosen. It’s what they’ll get. Unless we decide to bail them out because we don’t have the stomach to fight the culture war like wars need to be fought. Part of the pitch from guys like Dana White and Kid Rock seems to be a call for a weird sort of mercy.
I’ve even seen some on the Right arguing that we are called, as Christians, to forgive Bud Light for their transgressions. That is an actual argument I’ve seen from more than one person. But fighting back against culture rot, fighting against the people who are deliberately injecting perversion and moral insanity into our society, fighting against the corporate overlords behind it all, is not a time for mercy. These are not homeless, starving people on the street who need a helping hand. These are mega-billion-dollar corporations who are selling degeneracy for profit. If you manage to get your foot on one of their necks, you keep it there. You have no mercy until they grovel and beg and do exactly what you demand that they do. And, again, if we are not willing to do that, if we are not willing to be ruthless, if we will allow ourselves to be paid off, then there is no hope. We will never win this war. And we will not deserve to win anyway.
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Keep in mind the significance of the Bud Light boycott and the whole strategy behind it: We have turned this company into a cautionary tale. The whole point was to put its head on a spike as a warning to others. It’s a trophy for the mantle. We want to show corporate America this is what we will do — this is what we are capable of doing, and willing to do — if you spit in our face the way Bud Light did. But if we just put a dent in their sales for a couple of quarters, get no apology or concession at all, and then go back to supporting them, we will have taken their head off of the spike and put our own on it. We will have sent a very different kind of message to corporate America. We will have shown them that we are not willing to go for the kill shot. That ultimately we will always come crawling back, pathetically, with our tail between our legs.
But what’s happening now is even worse. This is not just an effort to end the Bud Light boycott. This is an effort to actively rehabilitate their brand. Because the truth is the boycott isn’t even really a boycott anymore. It’s worse than that for Bud Light. The problem has metastasized. We didn’t just boycott the company — we rebranded it. The brand itself now seem lame, effeminate, and embarrassing. Even people who don’t care about the boycott, or are only dimly aware of it, avoid drinking Bud Light just because they don’t want their friends to make fun of them. That’s why Bud Light is in such a dire situation.
Even if we officially ended the boycott, it wouldn’t necessarily matter. The brand is lame now. Customers don’t want to be associated with it. Which means that to really end the boycott, we would have to revitalize and repair Bud Light’s brand for them, which is what the Dana Whites and Kid Rocks of the world seem to be trying to do. This is like declaring victory in a war, accepting your enemy’s surrender, and then proceeding to give them back all the land you gained. You’re not just ending the war in that case. You are actively forfeiting your own gains. You aren’t just letting your enemy bow out. You are helping them repair the damage that they themselves caused.
Why would we do that? Why should we? What do we gain?
I know the UFC gains $100 million. But what about the rest of us? What about the movement? What about the culture? What do we get out of this “mercy”? Nothing. That’s the answer.
And on top of it all, it must be said, Bud Light sucks anyway. It’s a bad product. It tastes like stale rainwater scooped out of a murky puddle on the pavement. This is not just the most effective conservative boycott in history, but the easiest. Nobody with functioning tastebuds has any desire to drink that sludge anyway.
That’s what it comes down to. We can do what is effective, what is right, and also what is, at the same time, very easy. Or we can go out of our way to kneecap ourselves and turn an easy victory into a laborious defeat. Those are your options.
And really, you should not have any trouble making the choice.