Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Risking Florida tourism to impress MAGA voters
The governor’s contemptuous dismissal of the boycott threat seemed imprudent. “What a joke!” he snarled. He might preside over a state economy dependent on the travel industry, but with Ron DeSantis, hostility trumps hospitality. “A total farce,” he said. Never mind that the travel warning was issued by the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization; DeSantis was unfazed.
His brawler’s countenance must have great appeal among the rowdy MAGA voters he covets in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries. But this same belligerence has only escalated the threat to Florida tourism.
“Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals,” warned National NAACP President Derrick Johnson. He characterized DeSantis’ policies as “an all-out attack on Black Americans.”
Johnson cautioned, “Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by, African Americans and other communities of color.”
“Yeah, we’ll see,” DeSantis responded with his usual pugnacious disdain. “We’ll see how effective that is.”
Which was not the conciliatory response one might expect from a governor concerned about Florida’s $100 billion tourism industry. But this governor’s priorities have more to do with presidential ambitions than protecting the state’s economy.
DeSantis dismissed the NAACP advisory as “a pure stunt.” He said, “This is a stunt to try to do, if you want to waste your time on a stunt, that’s fine. But I’m not wasting my time on your stunts.”
His sense of irony must have gone kaput, given that DeSantis himself is a master of low-down political stunts. This is the governor who, by misappropriating $1.56 million from the Florida treasury, chartered a plane to fly 50 asylum seekers from Texas to Massachusetts just to make a big splash on Fox News. Talk about stunts.
The acerbic Christina Pushaw, head of his presidential campaign’s “rapid response team,” (more accurately, “rabid response team”) mocked the NAACP concerns. “Yes, keep the travel advisories coming,” Pushaw tweeted. “It’s hard enough to get a dinner reservation in this town.”
Easily obtained restaurant and hotel reservations are becoming the DeSantis administration’s most notable achievement. Last month, Equality Florida, the state’s largest LGBTQ rights advocate, issued a similar travel warning “in response to a wave of safety inquiries … following the passage of laws that are hostile to the LGBTQ community, restrict access to reproductive health care, repeal gun safety laws, foment racial prejudice and attack public education by banning books and censoring curriculum.”
On May 17, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) warned Latinos traveling through Florida with their families to be wary of the state’s harsh, new immigration law. “We do not doubt that if Abuelita or Tia is with us and we are profiled, DeSantis’ enforcement [police] will treat us like criminals,” warned LULAC President Domingo Garcia.
The day after the LULAC advisory, Disney World announced that it was canceling a $1.3 billion expansion which would have added 2,000 skilled jobs (average pay $120,000) to its Florida payroll. Disney cited “evolving economic and business conditions,” a bland euphemism for the feud DeSantis has waged against Disney since the company criticized his infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law.
DeSantis’ dust-up with the state’s biggest tourist attraction may work well in Republican presidential politics, but it amounts to yet another unneeded crisis for the state’s hospitality industry.
Beyond losing a percentage of Florida’s Black, gay and Hispanic visitors, tourism officials are worried that business groups will find states less embroiled in controversy to stage their conventions.
Their apprehensions are not shared, at least not aloud, by Dana Young, chief executive of Visit Florida, the state’s $80 milliona-year tourism marketing operation. She carefully characterized the NAACP travel warning with the very term used by the big boss. A “political stunt,” she called it. Such a coincidence.
Arguably, DeSantis and his minions in the Florida Legislature have passed even more offensive legislation than their North Carolina counterparts in 2016. The North Carolina Republicans pushed through a controversial law that eliminated anti-discrimination protections for gays and limited bathroom access for transgender people.
The so-called “bathroom bill” prompted seven states, 30 counties and the District of Columbia to bar their employees from traveling to North Carolina on business. Major college sports tournaments were moved away from the state. Movies were filmed elsewhere.
By the time the homophobic legislation was repealed a year later, North Carolina had lost an estimated $3.75 billion in revenue, according to the Associated Press.
And Pat McCrory, the governor who had signed the controversial bill, lost his reelection campaign.
The defeated governor didn’t say, “What a joke.”