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The response is switching between fundamentally interchangeable products. While people will claim that they love the taste or freshness or how cold it is the reality is that the American light adjunct lager sector of beer is a bunch of entirely fungible products differentiated primarily by branding. If a brand elects to move in the direction of being the brand that isn't for frat boys or is for trans people, I think it's proportionate and reasonable for some of their current redneck customer base to say, "I guess I'll have a Miller Lite then". The Kid Rock style "FUCK BUD LIGHT" response seems disproportionate to me, someone stating that they'll never have another Bud product seems disproportionate to me, but simply electing to grab the case of PBR instead of Bud doesn't really seem like some wild overreaction.
More broadly, I'd love for the norm to be "just make your beer and shut the fuck up about politics". I don't want my favored beverage makers to tell me how they support my 2A rights, or abortion, or back the blue, or that black lives matter, I just want them to ferment some grains, hop them appropriately, and put them in kegs and cans for me to enjoy.
See, this I can get on board with. Switching products for politics is a low, low bar. Grillpilling is a perfectly fine reason.
The performative outrage, the part where "people assumed it was so much bigger," that's what feels like a failure.
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