The conservatives' one-sided culture war against Bud Light and its parent company, Anheuser-Busch, has bubbled over into a new week after Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted a picture of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham holding a can of the beer in question. However, this wasn't your average can of Bud Light. It was one that was branded with the face of trans activist and actress Dylan Mulvaney.
This, of course, is controversial because prominent right-wing public figures, from Travis Tritt to Rep. Dan Crenshaw, are currently engaged in a bad-faith boycott against the beer brand because of its short partnership with Mulvaney. The boycott itself is buoyed by transphobic rhetoric, which is apparent in how many conservatives are talking about the brand.
"Who the hell at [Bud Light] thought it was a good idea to make a grown man who dresses like little girls their new spokesperson?" wrote commentator John Cardillo, while Townhall columnist Derek Hunter deemed it the "groomer of beers."
However, after Greene shared the photograph on Sunday night, commenters on Twitter quickly pointed out that it was Photoshopped. When Bud Light worked with Mulvaney in advance of March Madness, the company had sent her a beer can featuring her face in celebration of Day 365 of her viral "Days of Girlhood" TikTok, but both the company and Mulvaney have clarified that was a one-off design.
Therefore, it's not possible for Graham to have had that particular can. Then, as Forbes reporter Matt Novak observed, the original photograph of Graham actually came from an event in 2015, long before Kid Rock tearfully shot cases of Bud Light off a folding table. So what exactly is Greene going for here?
"While Greene and Graham are both Republicans, they're currently sparring in public over the recent leak of classified documents, allegedly by 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard who reportedly worked as an IT tech," Novak said. "Teixeira allegedly posted hundreds of highly sensitive military documents on a private Discord server called Thug Shaker Central to impress his online friends, most of whom were high school kids."
Greene has stated she believes Teixeira was serving as a whistleblower to keep Americans abreast of the war in Ukraine (though she apparently doesn't know his first name). Graham, however, publicly pushed back on that characterization of Teixeira's actions.
"It's one of the most irresponsible statements she could make," Graham said during an interview on Sunday with ABC's This Week.
He continued: "If you're a member of the military intelligence community and you disagree with American policy and you think you're going to be okay when it comes to leaking classified information, you're going to go to jail."
When Greene shared the photo of Graham on Twitter several hours later, it seemed as if she was hoping to channel some of the GOP's ire towards Bud Light towards the senator. Even if that plan had worked, though, Graham needn't have worried too much as the right's boycotts of "woke culture" are notoriously impotent and short-lived. Remember Donald Trump's Coca-Cola boycott? That's okay — neither does he.
