Up until a few months ago, few things seemed more American than kicking back with a Bud Light. Then the brand made the audacious decision to make a small gesture toward inclusivity — sending a transgender influencer, Dylan Mulvaney, a personalized can of Bud Light with her face on it — and the company suddenly found itself thrust into the culture wars over trans rights. Now we're seeing the financial toll it has cost them — Bud Light has lost its long-running top spot as America's number one selling beer.

Fittingly, the new beer brand at the top of the U.S. sales chart is Modelo Especial, a beer that was founded in Mexico nearly 100 years ago. You happy, red staters? Now the best selling beer in America has an inspiring immigration story! Nevertheless, conservatives were celebrating the results of the report, since many right-wing politicians and celebrities like human dumpster-fire Kid Rock were calling for a boycott of the beer recently. But it also comes off as rather hypocritical and un-American to be proud of a major U.S. corporation's dramatic sales decline at the hands of a company that was once a foreign competitor.

Additionally, the new financial report shines an unfortunate light on just how much beer red staters must drink. Parent company Anheuser-Busch sold $297 million worth of Bud Light for the four weeks ending May 28 — which represents a 23% drop from the same time period in 2022, according to consumer behavior data analytics firm Circana. Modelo Especial ranked No. 1 in May, with $333 million in sales — a 15% increase from the year prior.

Either anti-trans conservatives have been inspired to start living a healthier lifestyle because of the controversy, or there's a much more likely scenario — they've switched their beer-guzzling allegiance to Modelo Especial. If the left wants to wage a counter-boycott, the material kind of writes itself.

The unfortunate fact being lost in all of this is that Bud Light tastes like, well, Bud Light. If Americans wanted to embrace a Bud Light boycott due to its subpar taste they'd be entirely justified. The real controversy here should be what the heck is going on with conservative taste buds that they drank Bud Light as their beer of choice up until this point?