Even by 2023 standards, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ announcement last week about going after Bud Light was ludicrous. The Florida Republican, desperate to get his presidential campaign back on track, announced plans for a taxpayer-financed investigation to the beer company’s parent owner, alleging that AB InBev “breached legal duties owed to its shareholders” by partnering in March with Dylan Mulvaney, a trans woman with a prominent social media profile.
The governor helped justify the deeply foolish move by pointing to the state’s pension fund, a tiny fraction of which is invested in Bud Light’s parent company. In other words, as DeSantis sees it, the beer giant partnered with a trans woman, which caused its stock price to drop, which cost Florida some small amount of money, which justifies an official investigation.
It was not an argument to be taken seriously. Even if we look past the fact that the company had no idea the right would get so hysterical about a harmless and lighthearted 50-second Instagram video, the fact also remains that AB InBev’s stock price is at roughly the same place as it was a year ago.
But DeSantis engaged in some political saber-rattling anyway in ways that seemed familiar. A Washington Post analysis took note of the GOP governor’s willingness to use the power of his office to target businesses he doesn’t like for political reasons.
The biggest example with DeSantis, of course, is Disney. But in that case, the effort was at least initially couched as not being about Disney’s political statements. Disney had been critical of Florida Republicans’ efforts to restrict discussion of LGBTQ discussion in schools — dubbed the “don’t say gay” bill by its critics — and DeSantis fought back.
Now, the Floridian is using his authority to launch a related fight — not because Bud Light criticized one of his proposals, but because it had the audacity to do work with a trans woman on a brief marketing campaign.
What we’re witnessing, in other words, is a powerful political figure using governmental power as a political weapon of sorts. If only there were some kind of official committee responsible for examining such abuses — an investigatory panel of sorts tasked with scrutinizing “weaponization” abuses like these — that could bring some degree of accountability.
Wait, we’re in luck: Such a committee already exists in Congress. It’s just not the sort of panel that would take an interest in this story.
As we discussed earlier in the month, the House Republicans’ conspiratorial “weaponization” committee has spent months looking for evidence of officials using governments agencies as tools of retaliation. The panel, chaired by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, has struggled to justify its existence: Jordan’s crusade has produced nothing; the far-right chairman has confronted complaints from disappointed conservatives who expected him to deliver; and he’s seen many headlines deriding his select subcommittee as “a dud.”
But actual examples of government “weaponization” are readily available. Just this month, for example, former White House chief of staff John Kelly affirmed, under oath, that Donald Trump wanted to use federal law enforcement to target his perceived political foes. The retired Marine general, who has no incentive to lie, has contemporaneous notes about this from his tenure in the West Wing, which a congressional committee could scrutinize.
If Jordan & Co. are unmoved by that scandal, it could take an interest in DeSantis apparently misusing his office, too. Sure, it’s a state issue, and the committee is ostensibly focused on alleged federal abuses, but the governor is seeking a federal office, and the panel could choose to launch an inquiry.
But that almost certainly won’t happen: The select subcommittee will ignore evidence of Republican wrongdoing because its goals are inherently partisan and fundamentally unserious.
As we discussed, Jordan has spent much of the year insisting that evidence to justify his panel’s existence really does exist — and in a way, that’s true. It’s just not the evidence House Republicans are willing to consider.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
