Texas Senator Ted Cruz has opened an investigation into Bud Light’s partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Meanwhile, Texas is grappling with a migration crisis and a severe housing crisis. And also an outbreak of gun violence, extreme weather and a years-long drought. Something is loading.
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Texas faces a long list of crises: housing, immigration, and weather, among others.
So, naturally, Texas Senator Ted Cruz opens an investigation into Bud Light.
Social conservatives across the country continue to seize their pearls on Bud Light’s partnership with influencer Dylan Mulvaney, a 26-year-old transgender activist who has shaken the far-right’s perception of reality by existing in the open.
The company’s partnership with Mulvaney led to right-wing calls for a boycott of Bud Light, which impacted sales at its parent company, Anheuser-Busch. The latter reported a 23% drop in sales for the last week of April from a year earlier, CBS News reported.
Together with Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Cruz sent a letter to the beer industry regulator, the Beer Institute, asking if Anheuser-Busch’s partnership with Mulvaney “violates Beer guidelines. Institute prohibiting marketing to minors”.
“The Beer Institute must review whether your business has violated the Beer Institute’s Advertising/Marketing Code and Purchasing Guidelines prohibiting marketing to persons under the legal drinking age,” the letter states, stating that ” Mulvaney’s audience is significantly younger than the legal drinking age.” ”
To avoid an investigation, Cruz and Blackburn offered Anheuser-Busch the opportunity to “publicly sever its relationship with Dylan Mulvaney, publicly apologize to the American people for marketing alcoholic beverages to minors, and order Dylan Mulvaney to remove any Anheuser-Busch content” from its social media platforms, they wrote in the letter.
The letter, which misinterpreted Mulvaney throughout, also seeks documents and information on how “Anheuser-Busch verifies its partnerships and how Anheuser-Busch failed to assess the suitability of a partnership with Dylan Mulvaney.”
Meanwhile, in Cruz’s home state of Texas:
After Title 42 expires, the fate of thousands of immigrants hangs in the balance as politicians on both sides of the aisle play the hot potato by taking them to different cities.
The state faces an urgent housing and affordability crisis. According to the Texas Tribune, there are only 25 rental units available for every 100 low-income households.
Texas is also grappling with a series of deadly extreme weather events. In 2022, at least 279 people in Texas died from extreme heat, and the year before, 246 Texans died from severe winter freezes. And Texas farmers are preparing for another growing season beset by a years-long drought.
Texas is also the epicenter of gun violence. It is the site of 5 of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in US history.
Beer marketing, however – thanks to Cruz – has the full attention of top state executives in Washington.