We all know that Christmas is the season of giving and boy oh boy did last week’s news cycle give us plenty of gifts to indulge in.

From Hunter Biden’s call that Republicans were out to kill him to arguments about stipulations on foreign spending, there was plenty for me to delve into and pick apart.

On the more comedic side, it has to be said that for an administration that pledged to bring back dignity to the presidency, closing out the year with a gay sex tape really showed us rubes how it was done. Yes, that was a thing that actually happened.

Now let’s be frank, illicit salacious sex scandals in the halls of America’s government are nothing new. They’re practically a staple of the institution at this point. But even that scandal isn’t as significant to me as some of the updates on the Bud Light boycott.

Because as serious as the issues are in government, I’ve have always maintained that the greatest threat to America is the cultural and social rot created by leftist meddling.

This is the crux of the culture war and in my opinion something that is worth waging on every front for sake of the country. One of those battles has been the Bud Light boycott, something that, for once, the right has been on the winning side of.

Incredibly, there have been calls from many on the “right” to simply let bygones be bygones and ease up on the same company that slighted them.

This is a classic example of why the right is always on the losing side of the culture war and the reason that the left has been so successful. This losing streak could easily be avoided if the right could get out of its own way and hold itself to the same ideological standards as the left does.

Just as a refresher, the Anheuser-Busch brand ran afoul its customer base after the company partnered with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney.

This was met with uncharacteristic outrage from Bud Light drinkers, who saw the partnership as a betrayal of its customers. What ensued was perhaps the most successful right-wing boycott of my lifetime. For a while, it was an incredibly satisfying thing to watch and it even managed to inspire more than a little hope in those of us looking for a cultural return to normalcy.

The company was on the retreat, Mulvaney was melting down on TikTok and Bud Light had become a laughingstock.

That is until some big names have begun to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Kid Rock, who was most famous for taking a rifle and shooting up cases of Bud Light in a dramatic protest video that went viral, was photographed drinking Bud Light at a game earlier this year. Most recently, the "American Bad Ass" sat down with Tucker Carlson to say that he was done boycotting Bud Light and that everyone should move on now that they have learned their lesson.

"They deserved a black eye and they got one," Rock said. "So, do I want to hold their head under the water and drown them because they made a mistake? No, I think they got the message."

Rock wasn't the only one changing his tune, no pun intended. A few months back, UFC president Dana White signed a six-year sponsorship deal in the excess of $100 million with Bud Light to make it the official beer of the UFC.

As you might imagine, White got a lot of pushback from his fans but so far that sponsorship is set to move forward in 2024.

So what is the lesson here?

If you want to be charitable and cynical, you might say that the lesson is that time heals all wounds and that ultimately money can mend fences like nothing else.

Really, the lesson is that for all their talk about fighting wokeism, the right is not as serious about the cultural battles as their opponents.

If nothing else, the left is absolutely unshakable in the strength of their ideological convictions. When it comes to the right, despite their reputation for being staunch, stubborn and draconian, right-wingers are surprisingly forgiving especially when there's cash attached to the sentiment.

Leftists on the other hand cannot be paid enough whenever someone crosses an ideological line against them. And if history has taught us nothing else, it that the victors are always the ones willing to see the work through, no matter the cost. 

Washington County native Arthur Howell is a staff writer at The Beacon. He can be reached via email at arthur@roanokebeacon.com.