Bucking the growing “woke” and pro-LGBTQ trend in country music, multi-award-winning country megastar Travis Tritt has announced that he is ending his relationship with Anheuser-Busch because the beer company signed Dylan Mulvaney to endorse Bud Light.
Country music has long been associated with conservative, patriotic ideas (albeit with sometimes loose morals regarding the abuse of alcohol and the sanctity of marriage), but that association has been crumbling for years. In 2020, CNN ran an op-ed gleefully reporting that country music was going “woke.” That article praised Kenny Chesney for canceling his 2020 tour schedule because he “listened to experts” about Covid, and went on to list country performers who chose to “drop any association with Trump and his ideals.” That list included some stars who had built their careers by singing about values near and dear to the heart of their conservative base. The article introduces that list with, “While country has long been the music of choice for the conservatives, they’re running out of artists to support. That’s because many country artists have stopped supporting them.”
The piece ends by saying, “While many will claim that these artists are ‘unpatriotic,’ they might be doing the most patriotic thing possible by trying to save their country.” Setting aside the political aspect of whether or not one supported Trump in 2020, it must be remembered that at that time it was a foregone conclusion that either Trump would remain president or Biden would become president. Publicly choosing to loudly “drop any association with Trump and his ideals” was tantamount to supporting Biden — who had made known his plans to drag America into a liberal hell. And these country music stars were proud to have made that decision.
But since then, the LGBTQ (etc.) phenomenon has engulfed almost every aspect of life. Its gender-confused tentacles have wrapped themselves around politics, culture, business, education, and family. And in a race for the “woke” award, country music stars — including more than a few legacy stars — have chosen to move with the prevailing wind. In fact, in mid-2022, Wide Open Country published a celebratory list of “20 Country Stars Who Are Outspoken LGBTQ+ Allies.”
Setting aside the relative newcomers, the list included such old-time favorites as Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Willie Nelson, and Dolly Parton. And while no one is surprised that some of these artists lean left, some of their endorsements of the “trans” agenda smell more than a little like “career insurance” against being seen as “transphobic” for either simply stating the biological facts or — at the very least — just being quiet on the subject.
Against that backdrop stands Travis Tritt. On April 2, Dylan Mulvaney — a 26-year-old man obviously suffering from mental illness leading him to identify as a woman — was announced as a Bud Light spokesman in a March Madness Instagram video he posted. Another video shows Mulvaney drinking Bud Light in the bathtub while listening to hold music on his phone. Days later, Nike also joined the fray, making Mulvaney a spokesman with a video of him wearing women’s workout attire and doing something that this writer guesses is supposed to be aerobics. In all of the videos, Mulvaney appears as a sad, comic caricature of a ditzy woman. He simply looks like an insane person being used as fodder by companies pandering for sales — since that is what he is.
To put in the for-what-it’s-worth column, this writer bears no ill will against Mulvaney or any other person suffering from mental ilness. Vitriol should be reserved for those individuals, organizations, and companies that capitalize on the poor, unfortunate souls whose confusion leads them to doubt reality.
Thursday (the day after Nike’s announcement to use a man in drag to sell women’s attire), Travis Tritt — who has won two Grammy awards and four awards from the Country Music Association and has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1992 — tweeted that he is scuttling his Anheuser-Busch deal.
Responding to a reply from another Twitter user, Tritt listed all Anheuser-Busch brands.
His tweet — which has been viewed nearly 14 million times and has more than 150, 000 likes and 16,000 retweets as of this writing — also says he knows “many other artists who are doing the same.”
One such artist is clearly Kid Rock, who posted a profane video showing him shooting up cases of Bud Light and giving the company the one-finger salute.
So, while many megastars in country music are piling on the LGBTQ bandwagon, Tritt and others are standing firm against that prevailing wind. As to whether it will hurt his career, Tritt does not seem concerned. His dumping of Anheuser-Busch has the feel of “Here’s a quarter, call someone who cares.”
In fact, given that his kiss-off tweet to Anheuser-Busch has seen such a positive response (not to mention the positive response to Kid Rock’s video), it may be Anheuser-Busch that finds themselves on the losing end of pandering to a small fraction of mentally ill people. They may wind up asking themselves how much beer they thought they could sell to the LGBTQ crowd while Tritt and other conservative music stars continue along their straight path without Bud Light or any of its sister products.
