Beer has long been the booze of choice for the archetypal US conservative male, but that bubble appears to have burst. The country’s right-wing has had an increasingly “stormy relationship” with beer in “recent years”, said Slate. Now, they’re waging a “war” against “America’s favourite beverage”, and “beer is losing badly”.
Dizzying backlash
In 2023, a “conservative uprising” against Bud Light became “one of the highest-profile beverage-themed revolts since the Boston Tea Party, except with more guns and influencers”, said Slate. The brand had been America’s best-selling beer for more than two decades, with “boorish marketing aimed squarely” at men. But when a transgender influencer featured in a social media ad campaign for Bud Light, it sparked a “swift and dizzying” backlash and objections from “seemingly every conservative personality”.
Popular Mexican beers such as Modelo and Corona have also been caught in the “conservative crosshairs”, as selling beers imported across the border “turned out to be a disastrous business model in the face of an administration obsessed with keeping out stuff from abroad”.
A wider trend of sobriety among Republicans has further weakened beer sales. Many leading right-wing figures, including Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr, have spoken publicly about being sober. So did Charlie Kirk. “Maybe the rising tide of Christian nationalism has revived an old-fashioned Protestant temperance,” said The Guardian. Or “perhaps red-blooded right-wingers” have decided that RFK’s mission to “make America healthy again” requires “eschewing beer, barbecues and bourbon”.
Anti-woke options
Some right-wingers have been reluctant to forgo beer. In the wake of the Bud Light backlash, a “slate of alternative ‘anti-woke’ brands”, such as “Conservative Dad’s Ultra Right 100% Woke-Free American Beer”, have “proliferated across the internet”, said Politico.
Yet the brewing industry as a whole is facing major challenges. A recent Gallup survey found that 54% of American adults drink alcohol, the lowest level in nine decades of polling. The demographic “leading the charge”, said Slate, were “self-identified Republicans”, of whom “more than half are off the sauce”.
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