DeSantis Wants His War On The Mouse

Is Princess Lilibeth of Sussex gonna have to get in here and separate you two?

It's turning out that Governor Ron DeSantis - eager to win a Culture War battle against a pro-gay corporation like Disney and embarrassed on the international stage by Disney's legal maneuver to deny him that victory - wants to go on a full-out Salt The Earth campaign against the House of Mouse. Via Gabrielle Russon at Florida Politics:

Disney has been under fire from Republicans since last year when the company took a public stance on the state’s parental rights in education legislation, which critics call the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

As revenge, the Legislature approved a new law this year taking control of a Disney-appointed government board that oversees the resort’s infrastructure and emergency services. DeSantis appointed five new members to run the board.

But the latest twist has been Disney’s old governing board approving long-term deals stripping the state-controlled board of its power. The agreements were approved in a public meeting in the final days before the state took over.

Speaking Friday in Ocala, DeSantis vowed the state will work to overturn the agreements made by the old board.

On Thursday night, DeSantis hinted at other steps the state could take against Disney as he spoke at the conservative private Hillsdale College in Michigan.

“We’re not just going to void the development agreement they tried to do. We’re going to look at things, like taxes on the hotels, we’re going to look at things like tolls on the roads, we’re going to look at things like developing some of the property that the district owns,” DeSantis said, according to Florida Playbook published by Politico reporter Gary Fineout.

“They are not superior to the people of Florida. So come hell or high water, we’re going to make sure that policy of Florida carries the day. And so they can keep trying to do things. But ultimately we’re going to win on every single issue involving Disney, I can tell you that...”

It should be interesting to note that DeSantis was speaking at a conservative private college in Michigan instead of a public gathering in his own state of Florida. This is because DeSantis isn't doing this for the people of Florida: He's doing this so he can win over Culture War Far Right Republican voters in 2024.

We should also note how DeSantis is threatening to raise taxes on the surrounding hotels, converting the roadways into the Disney World complex into tolls to force more financial burdens on the locals, and seizing Disney's properties - would that be eminent domain or asset forfeiture? - to develop unwanted - likely costly and environmentally destructive - construction projects to make the region an ungodly sight. This is all coming from a man representing a political party that openly despised taxing large corporations, and from a man crowing about how his defense of "freedom" has saved Florida from dreaded a) liberalism b) socialism c) academic research or d) all of the above. The hypocrisy of DeSantis' threats underscore that it's not about taxes or freedom, it's always about getting everyone else to obey The Party him.

Given the location of Disney World on the Florida map, DeSantis is talking about wrecking havoc not only on the Disney World Resort area but pretty much everything between Polk, Lake, Osceola, Orange, and Seminole Counties. If DeSantis is going to blockade every roadway into Disney, he's going to have to set up tolls on both ends of I-4 surrounding the area. The wider the scope - adding tolls to the side roads from Lake and Seminole into the region, as well as key locations across Osceola and Orange - the more damage he can inflict on the local communities who need to work/live there.

If DeSantis is feeling extremely petty, he can put toll booths right at the intersection of I-4 and US 27 in Davenport, which happens to be a serious traffic bottleneck for everyone from Tampa and Lakeland trying to get to Orlando the city (which is further northeast from Disney). And he can refuse to set up the radar-scan type drive-by checkpoints that modern toll systems are using: He will set up the coin machine ones, the kind that break down every other hour and require you carrying $10 worth of quarters every time you try to go through.

DeSantis is also willing to impose his punishments on other businesses, not only the local stores and retailers who rely on tourism to survive but also on the large hotel chains who will feel the losses if DeSantis' taxes makes it too expensive for people to visit, eat, or shop across the Orlando metro. This won't be just a headache for the locals, this is going to turn into a business disaster across the whole nation.

DeSantis is behaving like a bully who's been punched in the face by a bigger, better trained fighter for the first time in his life, and doesn't get the idea that he needs to take a step back and accept the loss.

What he's threatening to unleash isn't going to just affect Disney's corporate leaders, it's going to affect an entire region of Florida with millions of residents, about a third of whom directly rely on the resorts and parks Disney runs and about another third who have businesses affected by Disney's well-being. Tourism is Florida's $50 billion meal ticket, and DeSantis is willing to crash and burn most of that for his personal vendetta against an enemy of his own choosing.

I quote Machiavelli often. Machiavelli's warning to would-be Princes - to would-be dictators like DeSantis - is that they need to avoid being hated. And nothing, Machiavelli added, makes people hate you more than fucking with their livelihoods.

If DeSantis thinks that punishing everyone else is going to make all the other residents and business owners hate on Disney, he's an idiot. Everyone is watching this, everyone knows who is putting the screws on here, and it's DeSantis and his GOP allies. If DeSantis thinks he's shielded from public outrage and discomfort due to a Far Right Culture War that's distracted Florida voters into siding with Republicans, he's going to wake up to a reality where people will shift their anger towards the Republican Party that's punishing them for things they didn't do.

This is a scorched Earth tactic that never ends well for anybody.

I keep begging my fellow Floridians to wake up to the real dangers that a rabid, hate-driven Republican Party brings to our state and our nation. 

Please for the love of GOD stop voting Republican. Please for the love of GOD let DeSantis fall to his own doom.