Posted on 05/04/2023 6:17:05 AM PDT by Tench_Coxe
Bud Light sales fell 26% by volume last month. Fox lost half its viewers in the 8 PM timeslot in one week. The protests against hiring Dylan Mulvaney and firing Tucker Carlson are working.
(snip)
“American presidential elections usually amount to a series of overcorrections: Clinton begat Bush, who produced Obama, whose lax border policies fueled the rise of Trump. In the case of Trump, though, the GOP shares the blame, and not just because his fellow Republicans misdirected their ad buys or waited so long to criticize him. Trump is in part a reaction to the intellectual corruption of the Republican Party. That ought to be obvious to his critics, yet somehow it isn’t.
(Excerpt) Read more at donsurber.substack.com ...
1. Bud Light and Fox
To pull a term from economics, both have a certain elasticity.
Bud Light truly in the economic sense (with a cultural element--even p**s drinkers get tired of being pi**ed on).
Fox in a cultural sense--15 or 20 years ago that may have not been the case, but a lot of alternatives have been springing up, and I'd argue with increasing quality even if they may not have slick production teams or deep marketing resources.
In the case of information, Tucker's removal from the air may have had the effect of spurring more people to seek alternatives. As an aside, it would be VERY interesting to see if there was correspondance between government/quasi government entities and Fox executives regarding Tucker Carlson.
2. I differ with the author on the overcorrection angle. Yes, there is that element, but at the higher level the analogy is more akin to WWE wrestling--its a show. In the end, your guy 'wins', but the WWE gets your money. And yes, Trump was the equivalent of an NCAA champ who came in showing what the real thing looks like, but stymied at every turn by WWE management (rules changes, the opponent allowed to wield an axe instead of a chair, Trumps own manager cutting his Achilles tendon, et al--well, you get the idea). The thing is, its been going on so long, you have a lot of audience really believing the show is real, or knows its fake but wants the entertainment value, or is getting kickbacks to convince others. But a growing segment, imho, is realizing the show is having a real, serious impact on their lives, joining the smaller group who knows its fake and wants to change that. And that is what the Uniparty is trying to stop, with increasing severity of measures without alarming the rubes.
“...waited so long to criticize him...”
Stopped reading right there.
Stopped reading right there.
Full stop.
https://www.mashed.com/197573/the-untold-truth-of-zima/
My take on what he means might be different than yours. I think what he is saying is because the GOP stunk, it gave rise to Trump. It wasn’t the fact they didn’t criticize him that put Trump in, it was the fact that the GOP is full of crap, and voters finally realized it.
It has become more than obvious that the President is not the Head of the State. The oligarchy that is appears to be losing its ability to disguise their existence. The puppet show they stage every four years is rapidly losing intelligent viewers - the WWE has more believable story lines.
Trump has been an all-you-can-eat buffet for every effeminate virtue signaler in this country for the past 8 years, and One Guy, for One, has had it
The boycott cause wasn’t helped by the Trumps going soft on Disney and Bud Light.
In both cases, there are easy alternatives. It’s beyond easy to choose another light beer. They are plentiful, and the price is the same.
As for Fox, the alternatives are there, but I find it’s best to just unplug. All media news outlets exist to either enrage or terrify you. I have no need for either.
I don’t think Don Surber dislikes Trump. I don’t think he was virtue signaling either.
I really think he was saying that if the GOP had done their job there would have been no need for Trump. However, the GOP tries to claim that the only reason Trump won is they didn’t criticize him soon enough for not being a conservative (for whatever crazy thing the GOP thinks conservatism is). His point is the GOP is full of crap, and the voters know it.
What he wrote, he wrote.
The sentence has a subject, predicate, verb, object, and if he wanted to avoid the odor of Trump bashing, he had every right to do it.
...every opportunity to do it.
“In the case of Trump, though, the GOP shares the blame, and not just because his fellow Republicans misdirected their ad buys or waited so long to criticize him.”
Blame for what?
I agree the wording wasn’t the best, but you have to look at the whole context of the paragraph. In this case “blame” doesn’t mean he dislikes Trump. It means they are to blame for their being a need for Trump at all, and yet they don’t even recognize that.
Neither Bud Light nor Fox News are being boycotted. They have been ostracized. A boycott will end due to the fact that it’s a fad. This level of rejection will not fade away quickly.
Bud Lite will probably still be around. But it will become a small player. Kind of like Milwaukee's Best. Usually you can find it. But not always.
Podcast content is the search for truth in content.
The article sucked, but your analogy is spot on.
The lesson here is that politics is NOT a team sport.
YOUR GUY does not have to win because he is on your team.
That’s how we got romney, mcconnell, etc.
These people rely on the “Team Sport” voters to stay in office.
The comments to this Zero Hedge article includes some gems:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2023-05-03/how-save-bud-light
My favorite comment:
“They have awakened a sleeping giant.”
Average folks are sick and tired of getting stomped on by every large enterprise—and Bud Light gave them an opportunity to actually do something about it.
Budweiser is getting all that pent up rage directed at them—and they earned it.
Corporate America needs to get hit with a two by four to get them to stop the woke craziness—and this is a great opportunity to do it.
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