The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Opinion How today’s Twitter has made conservative boycotts more successful

Sales of Bud Light are down almost 30 percent since Anheuser-Busch partnered with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney. (Rob Carr/Getty Images)
5 min

A question that has been eating at me recently: Why in the world are conservative boycotts suddenly working?

I mean, in general, politically motivated boycotts rarely work — people get bored or their opponents stage “buycotts” that cancel out their efforts. To the extent boycotts have worked, in recent years it’s tended to be the left using its institutional power against other institutions, like the companies that pressured Indiana into backing off an LGBTQ+ unfriendly religious freedom bill, or the campaigns to get advertisers to pull ads from Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show.

As of this writing, however, Bud Light sales are still down almost 30 percent since Anheuser-Busch decided to partner with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney; at one distributor, the beer is reportedly selling for less than a case of water. Target recently dialed back its Pride displays, the Los Angeles Dodgers temporarily rescinded an invitation to a controversial LGBTQ+ group, and jurors at an advertising festival were recently instructed to focus on ads that make money, not weighty message advertising.

I have been puzzled and intrigued, and so for a couple of months I’ve been asking smart people in business, academia and media what’s going on. Over and over, I’ve heard the same answer: “Twitter changed hands.”