We live in such strange times. Sometimes the headlines are a patchwork of tragedy, comedy, and just plain weird. I guess you’d have to call the Bud Light/Dylan Mulvaney story a comedy. So is the Tucker Carlson story. In each case, you have a corporation applying the woke rules and shooting itself right in the groin.
Then there’s the story of the Marine who stopped a lunatic on a New York subway car by putting him in a chokehold. Now he’s probably going to be put on trial for murder. That sounds like a tragedy.
And everything else is somewhere in-between.
The banking industry meltdown and the studiously ignored stagflation are looming catastrophes that we’re supposed to shrug off. And the daily appearance of another whistleblower to announce that the Biden Administration is breaking the law and simultaneously shielding itself from these crimes is a tragicomedy so outrageously obvious that no one would believe it if it were the plot of a movie.
And heaven only knows what tomorrow will reveal. Just the other day we heard that the Ukrainians launched a drone attack on the Kremlin to assassinate Vladimir Putin. The repercussions of that attempt may turn out to be the biggest tragedy of the century. As it is, the Ukraine war has the potential to destabilize the balance of power in the world. This new twist may cause an escalation that takes on a life of its own.
But none of these things changes the fact that we all have to live. We fret about the tragedies and wonder about the looming catastrophes that threaten from every side. But we still have to laugh.
So, I read about Anheuser-Busch’s corporate leaders declaring that all of this was a mistake and that there was no campaign to make Mulvaney a spokesman for Bud Light. And they’ve promised to triple the advertising budget and fill up the television commercials with young people wearing cowboy hats at Zac Brown Band concerts. And I can’t help but laugh.
Anheuser-Busch-InBev has hundreds of beer products. They could have selected a dozen craft beers and dedicated them solely to transgender awareness and the drinkers of Bud Light would never have known or cared. But someone at corporate, probably that ditz Alissa Heinerscheid or maybe her boss Daniel Blake, decided that it was time to replace all those rednecks with the millions of Audrey Hepburn impersonators who must drink Bud Light while soaking in the bathtub in full pancake makeup.
They just couldn’t help themselves. When you’re a woke evangelist, you’re always fighting the good fight. And so, they not only announced the Mulvaney sponsorship but they also released the video of Alissa Heinerscheid denigrating the present patrons of Bud Light as being not only benighted knuckle draggers who suffered from being terminal “fratty” but also were declining in numbers and therefore responsible for their product’s declining market share.
This will be a beautiful thing to watch. Anheuser Busch won’t go out of business. But this will be so painful that the people in the front office will never forget it. And hopefully, a lot of people who have right-wing customers for their products will also take note. And I just have to laugh. They did this to themselves, the chumps.
And right at the very same time, Fox News “parts ways” with Tucker Carlson. The replacement for his show is getting 48 percent of the audience that he used to draw. It’s had a knock-on effect on the rest of the line-up—and it’s getting worse. Enormous numbers of people are canceling their memberships in the premium plans that Tucker contributed to. Fox is losing a lot of viewers. And Carlson has the potential to take his audience wherever he decides to go next. And I just have to laugh. They did this to themselves, the mooks.
So, in the midst of the meltdown that is Joe Biden’s America, there is still a way to have a laugh now and then. It’s a wry chuckle and it’s mixed with a groan. But it’s a laugh nonetheless. And we go on, and we live our lives. So, until the Russian ICBMs start landing in Dunwich, I’ll continue doing my best to enjoy my life and share a laugh with you.
And Alissa Heinerscheid, this Bud’s for you, ya dope.