DeSantis vs. Disney: The next phase of the culture wars
The Disney company “has dominated Florida for so long that the very idea of a backlash from the state’s political leaders” was “unimaginable,” said Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times. But that was before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—whose 2024 presidential ambitions are no secret—took on the role of “quintessential right-wing culture warrior,” and decided to “bring the hammer down” on Disney for its “perceived wokeness.” Last week, DeSantis signed legislation passed by the GOP-controlled state legislature stripping Disney World in Orlando of a special agreement, dating back to 1967, that gave the company full control over the 43-square-mile site of its theme park. Disney’s offense? Company officials dared to speak out against a law—labeled “Don’t Say Gay” by critics—that restricts the teaching of sex and gender issues in Florida elementary schools. The House of Mouse has been a “golden goose” for Florida, attracting 17 million visitors annually, generating billions in tourist dollars, and directly employing 80,000 workers and generating more than 400,000 jobs. Using government power to retaliate against what conservatives deem “woke capitalism” marks an inflection point for the GOP, said Matt Lewis in The Daily Beast. Once the party of business and free-market economics, the Trumpified GOP has remade itself “as a populist, working-class party” that seeks to use the power of the state to fight back against progressive politics and culture. For many conservatives, that’s thrilling.
“Let Disney be an example,” said Rich Lowry in National Review. Company leaders, “bullied” by “a woke segment” of employees and outside progressives, opted to attack legislation “that has nothing to do with Disney whatsoever.” Disney’s objections relied on a “smear” that the law “threatened gay or trans people,” when in reality the law merely seeks to prevent public schools from teaching young children inappropriate material—“an objective that once would have been considered utterly banal.” The governor and state legislature are fully within their rights to revoke the favoritism bestowed on the so-called Reedy Creek Improvement District, once dubbed “the Vatican with mouse ears.” Republicans don’t want corporations “to become tools in advancing their agenda.” They just want them “to exit the culture wars and focus, once again, on their business.”
What hypocrisy, said David French in The Atlantic. Just three years ago, conservatives were “rightly furious” at the San Antonio City
Council for barring Chick-fil-A from operating in the local airport. The company was being punished for its Christian owners’ alleged “anti-LGBTQ behavior,” but since no antidiscrimination laws were broken, banning it from a building clearly violated Chick-fil-A’s First Amendment rights. Florida is emulating San Antonio, “except on a much bigger scale, to thunderous online right-wing applause.” Sure, no company is “entitled” to govern its own fiefdom, said Charles Cooke in National Review. But Florida Republicans never showed any problem with Disney’s special status until now. It’s “silly” for DeSantis to pick this fight, since he “has already fought Disney, and he has already won.” The classroom bill is law, and supported by “broad majorities of Floridians.” There’s no need for Republicans “to salt the earth here.”
In their haste to punish Disney, said Declan Garvey and Esther Eaton in The Dispatch, Republicans didn’t seem to calculate how disastrous revoking the company’s special status could be for Florida taxpayers. Disney heavily taxes itself, in effect, through Reedy Creek, funding upkeep for the roads, sewers, security, firefighting, and other public services needed for Disney World. If Disney’s special status is revoked, Florida taxpayers will have to come up with the $163 million Reedy Creek has been collecting each year. Plus, neighboring Orange and Osceola counties could be on the hook for Disney’s more than $1 billion in bond debt obligations. Punishing Disney for exercising its First Amendment–protected speech is clearly “unconstitutional,” said Ian Millhiser in Vox. In an email to supporters, DeSantis said “Disney and other woke corporations won’t get away with peddling their unchecked pressure campaigns any longer”—making it blatantly clear he was punishing the company for daring to speak out against him.
The message DeSantis is sending is clear, said Jonathan Chait in New York magazine. The “competent Trumpism” he’s offering Republicans is eerily similar to Viktor Orban’s authoritarian “grip” on Hungary, where the government uses its power to protect traditional values and wage war against progressive, secular forces. In DeSantis’ brave new world, political favors, such as Disney’s self-governance in Orlando, are available only to those who stay in the party’s good graces. “What DeSantis is building in Florida is his blueprint for the country.”