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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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The threshold for “it’s not worth it” is actually quite low

I don’t believe this. The implication of your entire comment is that progressive activists would rather not have to expend effort against their enemies. I think that’s wrong. The substitution of the progressive surrogate goal in the place of meaningful labor in order to satisfy the Kaczynskian power process is the whole point of progressive activism. They love crushing their enemies. Victory begets victory. It does not beget resting on one’s laurels.

You seem to be under the impression that conservatives won the Bud Light fiasco. If they did, then why is Bud Light still donating to the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce? They lost 20% of their entire multinational conglomerate’s market cap and they’re still pulling this shit.

They lost 20% of their entire multinational conglomerate’s market cap and they’re still pulling this shit.

Being between the Devil and the deep blue sea, and seeing that they couldn't just slap some redneck branding on the cans and get the lost customers back again, they have little choice but to kiss the boot and submit to the lash and prove their undying fealty by money and blood. Like it or lump it, they got themselves identified as the 'gay beer' and now they have to go with the flow there, especially as they were getting backlash for being insufficiently robust in defence of Dylan Mulvaney.

Conservatives on the bud light boycott explicitly didn’t have a win condition- they declared they were burning bridges to make an example out of them. There might be worse yet to come- it’s possible that republicans will at some point in the future investigate them for trying to sell alcohol to minors(which I have a strong prior that 110% of alcohol companies do).

The point of the bud light boycott wasn’t to get bud light to change. It was to make other corps more susceptible to pressure campaigns and gestures wildly at target and the MLB.

MLB

Didn't the Sisters get de-disinvited?

They got reinvited.

LA Dodgers apologize to Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, reinvites group to ... https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sanfrancisco/news/la-dodgers-sisters-of-perputual-indulgence-apology-pride-night/

Yes. But the MLB backed away from pride logos and at least one team, the rangers(incidentally the top performing team this year) will not be holding a pride night.

Haven't the Rangers never held a pride night? I remember reading a few years ago that they were in hot water for being the only MLB team to not have one. I had assumed they caved at some point like everyone else, but maybe not.

The rangers pushed back harder this year, IIRC, and several other teams(Astros and Rockies come to mind) indicated that they’ll still hold pride nights this year but are seriously considering changing their mind in the future.

You seem to be under the impression that conservatives won the Bud Light fiasco. If they did, then why is Bud Light still donating to the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce?

If donations to the “National LGBT Chamber of Commerce” were what conservative boycott organizers cared about they’d have acted years ago. They didn’t. The evidence is that conservatives don’t care much about companies donating to these kinds of political organizations.

They did claim the two most senior scalps in the marketing of Bud Light, and neither they nor other beer brands that cared to the same audience will try a similar marketing technique again. Look at how quickly so many on the left walked back anti-police rhetoric as soon as polling data showed even a small swing against them.

neither they nor other beer brands that cared to the same audience will try a similar marketing technique again.

Why not? Has the internal culture changed? Have they become more sensitive to the values of their core customers? The evidence suggests they still think LGBT inclusivity is more important than appeasing the politics of rednecks. Unless AB’ internal messaging is explicitly marking this as a cynical move to stay in good graces with the powers that be, some poor sap is going to rise through the ranks actually believing that LGBT inclusion is a core value of Bud Light, and then they’ll make the exact same mistake as soon as they’re put in charge of marketing.