‘Woke’ Disney Defeats DeSantis and Florida’s MAGA Right

Even the biggest politics will bend toward bigger money. It has been a truism since, well, anyone formed a government of any kind. DeSantis had to relearn this lesson in a battle with Disney and Disney’s refusal to go back to sleep once “woke.”

Actually, getting away from the MAGA framing, Disney won its right to determine its own corporate culture, starting out with opposing “Don’t Say Gay,” and eventually expanding into opposition against CRT and even immigration issues. This is a critical lesson for politicians and American businesses going forward.

There is so much “inside baseball” in the back and forth over Disney’s tax-free status in Florida that a step-by-step outline isn’t worth the time. We have a sufficient summary from The Insider:

DeSantis’ actions against Disney last year were retaliatory after the company opposed his Parental Rights in Education Act.  Critics call the law “Don’t Say Gay” because it bans teachers from instructing students about sexual orientation and gender identity until third grade, and contains nebulous language that could further restrict discussions in higher grades.

“Let’s not forget how this happened: Disney spoke out about something they didn’t feel was right, that the governor wa s doing, and so he decided to punish them,” Sen. Lauren Book of Broward County, the minority leader, said at Monday’s press conference.

And one more quick summary from everyone’s favorite Florida politics expert Ron Filipkowski:

The Disney fiasco was classic Desantis. Lots of bluff, bluster and Fox hits. He gets to act tough and talk some shit to the Neanderthals. Then at the end of the day it is all swept aside, undone, or tossed out in court. All so much theater, wasted time and money, no substance. pic.twitter.com/OW8OHSxwEV

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) February 6, 2023

I have repeatedly written that it is almost impossible to describe the fascist-like power that DeSantis wields, and that premise still holds. But remember the truism above about money.

Over the last six years, we’ve seen corporate America take a leftward turn on social issues. We can allow a small slice of this development to be attributed to a more moral, enlightened, and compassionate stance. A small slice.

But there are two much bigger slices. Big money is about big money. And big money Disney has determined that in being so closely tied to “Florida,” it is in their best financial interest to oppose these laws. The MAGAs may rule Florida politics, but national politics is far more moderate or, dare I say… woke? So Disney gets an opportunity to grab some free positive advertising by coming out against these laws.

And I suspect there is an even bigger reason, one that encompasses “all” American big business. We have seen the Tampa Bay Devil Rays tweet out against gun violence, Delta Airlines disregarded Florida’s mask-free laws, and nearly every big corporation is lined up against the MAGA movement’s anti-LGBTQ stance, its anti-diversity stance, its punitive immigration stance… on and on.

Why?

Because big business needs predictability and stability in a country that is financially based on the 30-year mortgage, the bet that the next thirty years will look close enough to the last thirty years that banks will extend loans for that period. Financial stability ripples outward from there.

But the MAGA movement takes pride in its instability, the conspiracy theories, the anti-science stuff, the “defund the government” shit, and fcking with raising the debt ceiling, which could cost the U.S. hundreds of billions in percentage increases in borrowing. In short, big business needs Trump, DeSantis, and the MAGA movement dead.

The easiest way to go about this is to align socially with the majority of Americans and against the MAGAs in those areas that make the MAGAs most insane. Big businesses will take GOP tax cuts, but they won’t take government employees becoming fireable “at will,” and subject to some loyalty test that will upend the federal government. Indeed, they don’t want any radical changes to a Constitution and “Deep State” that has produced more wealth and business freedom than any empire in history.

And that’s how I explain big corp’s more socially progressive turn. It’s not “my” theory alone. I just laid out disparate summaries of what I’ve read elsewhere and put them in one place and under one heading. Disney has essentially defeated DeSantis, and that is a model that banks, airlines, tourism, social media (Elon’s going down, Twitter is in a free fall for going the other direction), along with many others, will follow. They want MAGA dead.

Back to where we began, all the way back in history, to the point that people wanted to try “government.” Government will bend to big money. Usually, that’s bad for regular people like us. But every once in a while, like when it comes to the stability of the United States? It’s a good thing.
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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, SUBSTACK: MUCH LEFT ADO

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