Noah suggests that, in retrospect:

Bud Light’s customers ditched the beer because the firm’s marketing campaign communicated in no uncertain terms that they were no longer wanted. Message received.

He then notes that:

Bud Light isn’t alone. It’s hard not to notice the crusade that upstart marketing departments are waging against their customer bases predicated on the notion that those consumers are either embarrassingly gauche or don’t know what’s best for them.

This is correct. I’d merely add that this crusade has also made it into both of America’s political parties. The Republicans have decided that anyone who isn’t a Trumpist isn’t worthy of their attention; for good examples of this, see the way that Kari Lake talked about McCain voters in Arizona in 2022, the expulsion of anyone who dares challenge or criticize Donald Trump, and the ongoing insistence of the MAGA wing that the pre-2015 party was worthless and needs to be purged. The Democrats, meanwhile, have adopted a bizarre Hierarchy of Worthiness that divides people up into the Great Heroes and Great Villains of Everything, based solely on their immutable characteristics and/or their willingness to agree that whatever insane ideas the party adopted ten minutes ago must be considered irrefutable. Message: Received.

This instinct extends to the parties’ candidates. Americans don’t want Donald Trump to run in 2024; so, of course, he’s leading in the GOP’s polls. The country doesn’t want Joe Biden to run, either; so, naturally, he’s the prohibitive favorite. In 2022, the gap between the percentage of Americans who wanted in theory to vote for a Republican for the Senate and the percentage of Americans who actually voted for the Republican who had been nominated for the Senate was considerable. There are many reasons that the number of independents is growing as fast as it is, but an important one among them is that the traditional coalitions have begun to tell anyone who they deem impure that they ought to go away. So they are.