Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The story of how Budweiser went from a patriotic traditional values company to launching a creepy Bud Lite campaign featuring Dylan Mulvaney, a man who claims to be a little girl, began with the Bush administration when, after 150 years, Anheuser-Busch ceased to be an American company. Today it’s just another subsidiary of a Belgian-Brazilian multinational.
Except for its St. Louis employees, few noticed the difference when Anheuser-Busch became InBev, and the United States government failed to object to the hostile takeover. While the majority of Americans, and the governor of Missouri, opposed the move, the Bush administration did not. The media fashionably sneered at a campaign against the hostile takeover which called for fighting the “foreign invasion”. Eventually the company surrendered.
The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed declaring, “Why John McCain Should Embrace Anheuser’s Foreign Takeover”. (Cindy McCain was a major shareholder.) The Journal urged, “free trade and globalization are in the national interest. So is the sale of Anheuser-Busch to InBev.” How does the national interest look now? Would the Journal care to rethink its position?
The Bush administration, staffed with Wall Street Journal readers, easily approved InBev’s takeover of Anheuser-Busch and another foreign deal that put 80% of America’s beers in the hands of foreign companies. As an article noted, “Suddenly, instead of 48 major brewers operating in the United States, there were two — albeit two offering consumers dozens of competing brands. Together, they accounted for nearly 80 percent of U.S. beer sales.”
Bush Republicans allowed America’s crown jewels to be sold off and taken over by foreign companies. Now they’re wondering why those companies seem hostile to American values.
Why wouldn’t they be? They’re not American. And they don’t even like us much.
AB InBev is a multinational monstrosity with major business interests in Cuba and China.
InBev CEO Michel Doukeris recently said that the market he’s most excited about is China. And while AB InBev won’t be marketing Mr. Mulvaney in China, they decided to respond to a fall in beer volume consumption in America by shaking up their brands with a woke makeover.
“DEI must be embedded into how we think, behave and operate,” AB InBev warns.
Every AB InBev brand has been pushing some sort of sexual identity campaign so that in, “Brazil, Skol’s ‘Respect is On” campaign applauds individual choices and differences” and “to show support for the LGBTQ+ community, Corona’s #OrgulloSinEtiquetas campaign urged consumers in Mexico to show their ‘pride without labels.’” Bringing in a man who pretends to be a little girl to push Bud Lite is just part of this grand DEI vision by a foreign company.
It’s not even about us. AB InBev is a global empire practicing woke values imperialism. We’re just one of the minor provinces it invaded and is setting fire to in the name of its ideology.
Transgender politics are a major priority for AB InBev. Jackie Senner, the company’s Global Vice President of Diversity & Inclusion, who boasts that it offers, “gender affirming medical support for trans colleagues in the U.S. and name change support for colleagues in Brazil.”
And this philosophy comes from the top down with CEO Michael Doukeris heading up AB InBev’s Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Council. But it’s also nothing personal. The multinational attacks local cultural values around the world. Or at least most of it.
American companies have also gone obnoxiously woke, but much of corporate wokeness is driven by foreign CEOs or owners across major companies. Unlike American companies, multinationals like AB InBev have no skin in the game. They don’t care about the cultural damage that they do because it doesn’t touch them. Rather than building relationships with individual consumers, they rely on massive marketing and ad campaigns to do it for them.
Anheuser-Busch’s origins in a saloon are far away from its current place in a roster of brands. Beer is not a product to AB InBev, it’s a brand, and the culture war is a way to boost its brands. AB InBev cares much more about its social responsibility score than it does about what midwestern customers think. Wokeness is a form of elite virtue signaling. Bringing in a man who pretends to be a little girl is a way to make a mocked corporate brand appear more upscale.
To AB InBev, the backlash against Bud Lite is a marketing victory. That might not have been the case if the company had any meaningful roots in the midwestern areas where companies are jettisoning its beer, but it doesn’t have them anymore or in America. Multinationals are based around major urban centers with no real commitment to any individual country or culture.
A lot of Budweiser drinkers still think of the company in terms of its 9/11 ad, but it’s no longer that company and hasn’t been in a long time. This Bud’s brought to you by Dylan Mulvaney, by the HRC campaign and by social responsibility metrics. It doesn’t make liquor, it makes ad campaigns that signal its political virtues. That’s what the Journal’s globalization gave us.
Globalism was catastrophic for our economy and our culture. It not only destroyed working class and middle class jobs, it turned over the commanding heights of our economy to foreign companies using familiar brand names with no American allegiances. Consumer choice has been one of the casualties with a handful of foreign companies controlling most brands.
Would the Wall Street Journal feel differently about Anheuser-Busch’s takeover today?
Americans have woken up to the dangers of globalism. The myth that some mythical goddess of the market would prevent globalization from wrecking the country has been put to bed. The devastation is all around us in a multitude of ways and politicians are starting to catch up.
As long as corporations have a great deal of control over our culture, they ought to remain in American hands. The path to a creepy man pretending to be a little girl pitching Bud Lite began with the globalism of the Bush administration. And our culture and values are paying the price.
Lightbringer says
Mr. Greenfield, this is most dismaying news to this American who, like many, has simply not been paying attention, especially to corporations whose products she has no interest in. Maybe it’s time to look up and find out what’s been going on for the past twenty years. Even leaders who seemed to be genuine patriots at the time (such as Bush in 2001) were industriously betraying us all along and selling out our Republic.
sumsrent says
Correct… The Bush Administration along with our American Government allowed satanic worshiping muslims to attack America on 911… which led us into the Fake War on Terrorism… which led us into a rise in Heroin use and immigration issues…
Dr. Don Rhudy says
Indeed, yes, in fact most of our “leaders” are betraying us. First, all of the members of the National Democratic Party betray us, but they have done so actively since at least 1980 or 1985 when Democrat leadership was taken over by young Marxists. The crying shame is that most of the GOP have also been betraying us. The election of Trump was a reaction to that realization by Americans, not by the standard GOP voter. The acceptance of globalization by Bush cited here was not the beginning of the deterioration of the United States or the betrayal by office-holders. That goes way back. Any time when one of two political parties votes 100 percent for or against legislation and the other votes something less than 100 percent but more than 80 percent for or against legislation every time legislation is put forth you must realize that neither party is concerned with representing the people who sent them to public office. They represent solely their party in contravention of the founding constitution.
Frank says
It’s doubly insulting , InBev has some public relations damage control firm paste together a video commercial of a long forgotten Clydesdale trotting around the country side . Then the brain trust sitting around the conference table says ; it just needs a little something else . A soy boy declares “lets throw in an American flag,” that will entertain the sheep .will have them back in a week
W. Layer says
Mulvaney is not a woman and Bud Lite is not beer.
Algorithmic Analyst says
Thanks Daniel. H. Ross Perot warned us, but I didn’t take him seriously at the time.
mj says
Well, as long as we are compelled and supported – thanks to your superlative efforts, Mr. Greenfield – to think about, remember, meticulously research and understand as humanly possible, the actual history and ideological origins of the current theater of beyond-the-absurd, the forces of good (FOG) still have a chance to defeat the forces of evil (FOE).
FOE, after extracting any vestige of Godliness in everyday life, have then honed in on the lowest common denominator for humanity, i.e. breathing. But I wouldn’t hold my breath on that.
FOE has bigger plans.
But for now, FOE puts the “cult” in culture and sucks out the “unity” from community.
A hint of FOG is out there – and it ain’t drinkin’ Bud Light.
Miranda Rose Smith says
George W. Bush or George H.W. Bush?
p38ace says
George W, AB was bought in 2008.
Gordon says
I would include both.
Arthur Bauer says
“The path to a creepy man pretending to be a little girl pitching Bud Lite began with the globalism of the Bush administration. And our culture and values are paying the price.”
Gordon says
Globalization is antithetical to national interest. Globalization does mean free and fair trade between nations, It means the destruction of national identity and loss of individual liberty through the transfer of more local and accountable government and organizations(to include corporations) to ever more distant, unelected and unaccountable governing bodies. National interests become subservient to “global” interests and “common good” is what is good for the transnational corporations and political elites running the show.
THX 1138 says
“The myth that some mythical goddess of the market would prevent globalization from wrecking the country has been put to bed.”
“Goddess of the market”? What the hell do you mean by that Greenfield? Who’s the goddess? “Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right” is the title of a 2009 book completely and deliberately misinterpreting and smearing Ayn Rand and her philosophy. Ayn Rand was not a goddess of the market she was a philosopher-novelist. She was not primarily an advocate of Laissez-Faire Capitalism but a defender of REASON.
Ayn Rand and her philosophy are despised, smeared, misrepresented, misinterpreted, and rejected by the Left and the Right. How could she possibly prevent secular totalitarianism or religious theocracy when her philosophy isn’t even taught at 99% of the universities?…
THX 1138 says
You want to know what the real myth is Greenfield? That Judeo-Christianity leads to freedom, liberty, and the Free Market. Judeo-Christianity doesn’t lead to freedom but to the tyranny of theocracy. Judeo-Christianity prepared the ground for modern totalitarianism by entrenching in the western mind the idea that man is the property of an almighty, omniscient, God beyond his reasoning mind to know or comprehend. That man has no right to exist for his own self-interested happiness but that he must sacrifice himself for God and neighbor and seek salvation for Original Sin.
Socialism-Communism-Fascism is simply Judeo-Christianity secularized. The Communist ejects Almighty Yahweh from the mystical equation and replaces him with Almighty Society as the supernatural organism and entity that man must be sacrificed to.
Intrepid says
Taken from THX’s notecard # 207.6.5 “Judeo-Christianity leads to freedom, liberty, and the Free Market.” myth.
You seem a little angry today. Things still not working out for you. No one paying attention to you. Why would they when you insult every Christian and Jew on the planet.
Intrepid says
Uh oh. THX has been insulted again. Better watch out or he will hit us with his Objectivist notecard collection.
It’s our rezidentura tough guy again. I guess you think Greenfield appropriated title. And here you are, the knight in tarnished armor, coming to the aid of your goddess.
Yes she is despised by everyone. She was obnoxious, as are you. She is smeared, as are you. She is rejected, as are you. I’m not surprised you have taken up with a dead ender. It’s almost like you took the text from Handel’s Messiah “He was despised and rejected.” More messiah complex, please.
Guess what. The article is not about Rand or this book. Do you really understand how ridiculous you appear to be.
Objectivism will never be taught at any universities because it is of no account to anyone. But I love it when you get on your high horse.
THX 1138 says
Ah yes, our resident Lutheran. Martin Luther, rabid anti-semite, major hero of Hitler and the Nazis, defender of the Almighty State.
How much tax-payer loot is your Lutheran Church eagerly accepting to aid and abet the illegal alien invasion and destruction of America, all in the name of Christian altruism, “You are your brother’s keeper”?
Not a single Objectivist organization accepts a single red cent of tax payer loot from our Almighty State. But Lutherans, Catholics, Methodists, and sundry other Jewish and Christian organizations eagerly do. There went the separation of church and state all in the name of altruism.
“Religious writers often claim that the cause of Nazism is the secularism or the scientific spirit of the modern world. This evades the fact that the Germans at the time, especially in Prussia, were one of the most religious peoples in Western Europe; that the Weimar Republic was a hotbed of mystic cults, of which Nazism was one; and that Germany’s largest and most devout religious group, the Lutherans, counted themselves among Hitler’s staunchest followers.” – Leonard Peikoff, “The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom In America”
Intrepid says
I’m still waiting for you to put your money where your big mouth is.
Take it up with Lutheran Social Services, if you have the guts.
Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota
2485 Como Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55108
800.582.5260
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
8765 W Higgins Road
Chicago, IL 60631
Toll-Free: 800-638-3522
But I know you won’t. Because you are a little chicken boy.
I have a feeling there are more Lutherans on this site than Objectivists.
You could always petition the Government for some $$$s. After all, the Feds waste money on lots of Leftist causes, Like BLM. You won’t do that either. Any wonder why Objectivism is a dead end?
Algorithmic Analyst says
I would try to explain my doubts about objectivism but he wouldn’t understand it. Such as I am not sure “objects” or “facts” about the physical universe exist, rather they are just a convenient model for purposes of simplification, etc.
I saw a lecture by the “Big Guy” (Quine) about Ontology at Berkeley in the 1980s. That left me even more uncertain 🙂
Daniel Greenfield says
Relax.
I haven’t ready any biographies of Rand and couldn’t name a single title.
Your cultist response to any perceived blasphemy is obnoxious as is your immediate cultist response of attacking other belief systems in response.
I know plenty of objectivists. They’re sensible people who don’t act like you do.
THX 1138 says
I see that all but one of my comments have been deleted today, Thursday April 20. This really is essentially a Jewish and Christian conservative website and any criticism of either religion isn’t welcome. David Horowitz should really declare that openly.
Judeo-Christian conservatism will go nowhere in saving freedom, liberty, and capitalism because in fact Judaism and Christianity prepared the ground for Islam and atheistic. totalitarianism.
Objectivism will be waiting in the background for the day, who knows when, maybe after centuries of a new religious, theocratic, Dark Age for anyone who really wants to understand what freedom, liberty, and capitalism depend on.
Dr2xFour says
They end run us thru corporations.
What they can’t get done at the ballot box corporations do the dirty work for them.
I can’t see the end game…. when they have pissed off 80%??? of their customer base who them buys the product?
Seems like they are willingly killing themselves…. but then we don’t say or do much right?
Kynarion Hellenis says
Thank you, Mr. Greenfield, for connecting the dots once again.
Daniel Greenfield says
Thank you. It’s important to see the big picture.
Richard G Johnston says
AB just came out with a new slogan for Bud Lite. “Girls who drink our beer don’t have a bush.”
JBnID says
After the EPA wrecked American industry and OHSHA hobbled what was left, only the foreign labor markets under less regulations could supply common tools and goods at an affordable price.
The government killed the golden goose of innovation and hard work through regulations and excess taxation. The unions tied industry’s hands to an anvil during the rising flood of goods from abroad.
Una Salus says
Like IBM they stopped being American a long time ago but like politicians they can still play the theme song. It’s worked really well for name recognition politicians and no sign of change.
Una Salus says
America is now such a big ship with so much built in lag that by the time it realises there’s a problem there’s no time to turn around.
Algorithmic Analyst says
I often saw such big ships on San Francisco Bay. You must have seen them where you are also 🙂
Algorithmic Analyst says
The level of corruption in some parts of the world is unfathomable to an American mind.