Charles Barkley Says 'F--k You' To People Upset About Bud Light But Is He Missing The Point?

Count Charles Barkley as someone who isn't going to be boycotting Bud Light anytime soon.

According to TMZ, the NBA legend and TV personality was in Lake Tahoe for the American Century Celebrity golf tournament. At some point, he got a little time away from the links. This gave him a chance to take the mic and lambast people unhappy with Bud Light's descent into wokeness.

"I want y'all to drink this f--king beer," Sir Charles said. "I want y'all to drink this f--king beer, I got three cases of Bud Light."

Those three cases may mean that Barkley was holding onto the biggest supply of Bud Light in the entire world. Perhaps he was just trying to get rid of it.

Nope, he wasn't done.

"Hey, "And I want to say this...."

Drumroll, please...

"If you're gay, bless you. If you're transgender, bless you. And, if you have a problem with that, f--k you!"

Yup, there it is.

Charles Barkley May Be Missing The Point Of Why People Were Mad

Now, I think most people like Chuck (I know I do, a lot) and he's entitled to his opinions. If he wants to support the LGBTQ community, have it at it, pal. However, in this instance, it seemed like he was conflating homophobes and transphobes with people who have been frustrated with Bud Light in recent months.

It's lazy to say this whole mess was because of homophobia, transphobia, or any other kind of phobia. It started with anger that the brand partnered with Dylan Mulvaney: someone who was openly mocking biological women.

We've all seen the video where Mulvaney dresses like Audrey Hepburn (by the way, I've never understood what that had to do with anything) holding up a can and acting like women have never even heard of March Madness.

Of course, they have. Many of them watched Charles Barkley cover it.

The more intense rage came a few days later when an interview surfaced in which the brand's disgraced former marketing VP slammed the people who had consumed Bud Light for years and talked about ridding it of its "fratty image" and "out-of-touch" branding.

That's when the anger and frustration kicked into overdrive.

Telling the consumer base to pound sand is what really made people mad. Mulvaney was the fuse while the VP making a fool of herself was the crate of dynamite.

Unfortunately for Bud Light, everyone said, "Thank you; we will see ourselves out," and took their beer money anywhere else.

Bud Light sales have taken a beating in recent months. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Blaming Form Of "Phobia" For The Bud Light Fiasco Is Lazy

It's easy for progressives to say, "These homophobes/transphobes don't want to drink Bud Light, blah, blah, blah.'" Of course, that's an inaccurate oversimplification. They just continue to do the very thing that started this whole fiasco in the first place: ignore their actual base in favor of courting a completely different one through traditional woke tactics.

In this case, that tactic was printing a six-pack with Mulvaney's goofy grin on it, and it backfired like some kind of Wile E. Coyote contraption.

Look, I think Barkley is smart enough to know this. If you watch that video it looked like he was having a good time. We don't know what happened before the camera started rolling, but I got the sense he commandeered the microphone like someone loud aunt at a wedding.

Maybe he meant what he said, or maybe given the benefit of hindsight, he'd recalibrate this one a little.

Still, it goes to show that the whole reason for this Bud Light fiasco is still not clicking with progressives.

Though the way things tend to get handled on that end of the political spectrum, is that surprising?

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