Article by Andrea Widburg in The American Thinker
In Florida, a new law says Disney is no longer special
What Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature just accomplished vis-à-vis Disney is a big deal.
For decades, when it comes to leftism creeping into every American institution, conservatives have played the game two ways: either they've played defense or they've withdrawn from the fray entirely. In this case, though, by withdrawing a unique legislative protection that the state granted Disney in 1967, Florida turned the tables and waged war on the woke.
A couple of days ago, Jesse Kelly made an interesting point on Twitter — for decades, Republicans have made losing their comfort zone:
Decades of the government declaring war on everything from coal to Chik-fil-A and one state passes one thing to hit back and our side is uncomfortable.
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) April 21, 2022
Loser Mentality. The Right is infected with it. And it must change.
Only a “conservative” thinks you can win a fight without hitting back. https://t.co/S6IGMHRfNj
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) April 21, 2022
Ran for Congress twice. (Lost twice. NBD.) And one thing I learned about politics is the absolute worst thing is not your political enemies. They hate you. You hate them. It’s a fight.
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) April 22, 2022
The worst thing is how much time you have to spend dragging your useless allies along.
He's right, and we all know it. There are too many people (I won't name names, but you know whom I mean) who found Trump terrifying because he was finally going to make "Conservative Inc." live up to its promises. So they joined with the left to destroy Trump.
Currently, no one is destroying Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature. Instead, they're doing something unique in the annals of modern conservatism: they're bringing the fight to the ideological enemy.
In this case, sad to say, that enemy is Disney. Walt Disney founded the company with a vision of entertaining the child in every person and reinforcing the core American values that made up his childhood. Now, though, the Disney company is dedicated to exploiting every child and reinforcing disturbing values about race and sex that will tear American society apart.
Disney didn't have to go to war with Florida. When the Florida Legislature passed and DeSantis signed a bill saying teachers in kindergarten through third-grade classes should not deliberately address the fantasy of gender identity, and other sexual matters, with the five- to eight- (or nine-) year-olds in their charge, Disney could have said nothing. Most people support the law.
But for Disney, the pressure from the LGBTQ++ contingent within the company was too great to bear. Disney, therefore, announced that it was going to war with Florida to ensure that weird, pierced teachers pumped full of gender hormones could continue to proselytize their warped views to rooms full of trapped, vulnerable children:
Statement from The Walt Disney Company on signing of Florida legislation: pic.twitter.com/UVI7Ko3aKS
— Walt Disney Company (@WaltDisneyCo) March 28, 2022
At around the same time, America got to see videos showing high-level Disney employees boasting about their commitment to inserting LGBTQ++ content into everything possible.
Thanks to Disney's misbegotten idea to get involved in state politics affecting children and to use its products to push children into the LGBTQ++ mindset, two things happened. First, Disney's stock tanked:
Statement from The Walt Disney Company on signing of Florida legislation: pic.twitter.com/UVI7Ko3aKS
— Walt Disney Company (@WaltDisneyCo) March 28, 2022
Second, the Florida Legislature passed, and DeSantis signed, a bill stripping Disney of its special status as a self-governing district. Florida granted that privilege (not a right — a privilege) to Disney in 1967 based on Disney's plan to build an entire community in what was then pastureland and swamp. Because the counties in which the land was located lacked the resources to support that kind of development, Florida established the Reedy Creek Improvement District, allowing Disney to act like a county government on that land. This special status has been very profitable for Disney.
The Disney company must currently be shell-shocked to find that it had to pay a price, in the form of losing that profitable privilege, "just because" it went to war against the Florida state government. After all, woke companies have been declaring war against so many things lately, all without suffering any significant consequences. They've gotten used to the fact that, as Jesse Kelly said, Republicans are comfortable losing. Republicans will usually huff and puff, but take no action on and bear no responsibility for anything.
In DeSantis, though, there's a new sheriff in town, and he's here to clean up the scourge of wokeness that is destroying America from within, one child at a time. Disney just happens to be the first company affected by this clean-up.
And please, ignore those leftists who are squealing that Disney is being punished for speech. The Legislature always has the right to remove special privileges that it once granted. Disney has the right to stay on exactly the same path as before, including wading into politics. However, a company that built its brand on entertaining the child in all of us might want to rethink its strategy of rebuilding its brand on grooming children.
