You’ve likely seen, in a couple of posts the Louisiana Freedom Caucus PAC has put up here at The Hayride this week, references to Bud Light Republicans. I want to talk about that a little, because it’s more than just a funny name being thrown at politicians lacking in principle.

The reference, obviously, goes back to the controversy and market shift which mostly destroyed an iconic beer brand thanks to a terrible decision by incompetent corporate apparatchiks. You’ll remember that a brand manager for Bud Light named Alissa Heinerscheid thought it would be a good idea to bring in “trans influencer” Dylan Mulvaney, a gay man pretending to be a teenage girl on social media, as a brand ambassador for the product. Heinerscheid defended the decision, when a public uproar soon ensued, by saying that she was hired to resurrect Bud Light because it was a “declining brand,” and it was seen as “fratty,” and so the way to fix that was to become more “inclusive.”

Meaning that the traditional American worldview Bud Light and its core customer base had embraced wasn’t good enough, and so success would only come by embracing and paying obeisance to the elite radicalism of those in power.

As you know, that was one of the most disastrous marketing decisions in American history. Bud Light went, in the space of a couple of months, from the #1 beer brand in America to out of the top 10 as a giant chunk of its core customer base simply dropped it and moved on to drinking a different brand of beer which wasn’t offensive to its values.

So that’s Bud Light. What’s a Bud Light Republican in a Louisiana context?

Well, there’s the most obvious comparison, namely the Bud Light Republicans who literally lined up with Dylan Mulvaney on key social legislation at the Capitol over the last several years. Take Barbara Freiberg, for example; the Baton Rouge House member thought it would be a good idea to vote against bills banning biological males from competing in women’s sports in Louisiana. That’s a policy position practically every red state in America has adopted, and it was ultimately adopted here, but Freiberg went hard against her own constituents in opposing it.

Or Joe Stagni, who was not only a bad vote on the girls’ sports bill but also voted against banning pediatric sex changes and chemical castration drugs for kids.

But Bud Light Republicans come in other shapes and sizes as well. Because it isn’t just social legislation that defines them. It’s slavish obeisance to the ruling class while rejecting the values of the people you’re supposed to consider as your customers or constituents. That contempt for the people is what’s at heart of Bud Light Republicanism, and it’s been around for a long time.

Only a Bud Light Republican would, for example, throw in with the teachers’ unions like Buddy Mincey, Hugh Andre and Chris Turner have. They’ve touted endorsements from the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, which is the local affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers run by Randi Weingarten.

You know who Randi Weingarten is, right? This lady.

🚨🚨Randi Weingarten likened parental rights and school choice advocates to segregationists:

She says the words “choice” and “parental rights” are the same kind of words that were used in reaction to school desegregation by opponents of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. pic.twitter.com/XDvP12pWbU

— Nicki Neily (@nickineily) September 13, 2023

She was also the single most influential actor in shutting down public schools across the country during the COVID panic, and in doing so trashing the education of American kids. There might be no more toxic figure in American politics than Randi Weingarten.

If you’re touting the endorsement of Randi Weingarten’s organization, you’re as fake a conservative as Dylan Mulvaney is a fake woman. That would make you a Bud Light Republican. And we won’t get school choice, which voters overwhelmingly want, with Bud Light Republicans populating the legislature. Our children will keep paying for that with poor education, insufficient skills, and limited future prosperity.

But if what you’re really about as a legislative candidate is going to Baton Rouge and simply plugging into the old-time Huey Long status quo gang, taxing and spending so that you can bring useless swag back to your district and build monuments to yourself, you’re also a Bud Light Republican. Many of the people representative of that crowd are only Republicans because they think it’s the best way to fleece their constituents and they’ve got contempt for them.

Take Jeremy Lacombe, for example – Lacombe was a Democrat until he got throttled by Caleb Kleinpeter in a Senate special election last year, and then he switched parties to Republican in order to run for re-election to his House seat. Did he have some sort of ideological epiphany? Hell, no. He saw putting that “R” next to his name as a means of holding onto power and remaining part of the “in” crowd, and he doesn’t give a damn that he’s lying to his constituents with that “R.” He said in his announcement that he was switching parties; he wasn’t changing his values.

That’s a level of contempt which is outrageous. We see it all the time. We see it in Mike McConathy, who has the backing of what’s left of the Democrat Party in Louisiana, all its trial lawyer money, and the old-school status quo mob as he runs against Alan Seabaugh for the Senate. McConathy isn’t a Republican; he only recently registered as one, and he’s publicly said he was for John Bel Edwards and against Donald Trump. And what’s more, you can’t get a straight answer from McConathy on anything that relates to public policy. His entire race is built on the name ID from being a college basketball coach at Northwestern State, not giving the voters anything to hang a hat on as to what kind of senator he’d be, and letting Democrats and the crooks plying their trade at the Capitol spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trashing Seabaugh – an actual conservative with the battle scars to prove it.

We see it in Pat Connick, the greasy machine politician running for re-election in Senate District 8 who voted against practically every conservative issue in this past legislative session and then took a powder at the veto session rather than vote against John Bel Edwards.

Hell, we see it in practically every one of these legislative races.

There are Bud Light Republicans all over the place in Louisiana. The voters have all but destroyed the Democrat Party here, and outside of the majority-black districts it’s going to be almost completely wiped off the map in this electoral cycle. But those political crossdressers who have fled the party truly reflecting their values are showing up as Republicans in an effort to fool the rubes, and they’re well-funded by the same folks the voters are trying to reject.

There’s no honesty in it, and certainly no principle. There’s only a lust for power and a willingness to sell out not just themselves but absolutely their constituents just like that stupid brand manager with her Ivy League degree was willing to sell out regular American beer drinkers.

What happened to Bud Light needs to happen to the Bud Light Republicans. Early voting is going on right now, and the primary election is on October 14. Be that agent of change and retribution at the polls that you were at the grocery store.