That NYT op-ed about Bud Light is nasty work

The New York Times Opinion section published an op-ed by a former Anheuser-Busch InBev executive yesterday claiming that Bud Light’s catastrophic collapse in the face of a transphobic conservative boycott in 2023 was the outcome of Too Much Woke™️. Surely, there are more important subjects at hand to fill most influential column inches in the English-speaking land, given it’s nearly two years after the fact, and the President of the United States is Gestaposting from the Oval Office and calling snap holidays to amplify his demagoguery about the evils of trans people, and, y’know, everything else?

Nevertheless, The Gray Lady did indeed tap a former Bud guy and current anti-woke finance guy to cherry-pick facts and advance half-truths about how this (heavily produced, very-well-trod) shitshow played out for his own ideological and professional gain. The piece is “Working at Anheuser-Busch, I Saw What Went Wrong With the D.E.I. Movement” by Anson Frericks, published March 11th, 2025 in The New York Times. It stinks. Here’s why.

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