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Can You Guess What the Handpicked DeSantis Disney Board Wants to Defund? [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-07-27
Politics is easy. If you are a Republican, then you just say whatever you think the rubes want to hear, hand out a few free corn dogs, and slander your opponent. Sometimes, if you are ruthlessly ambitious and trying to build a path to power, you pick fights. In the case of Ron DeSantis, he thought that picking a fight with his state’s largest and most powerful employer was a path to greater power.
Politics is easy. But the governing, well that is hard.
A public police force that provides off-duty services to Walt Disney World’s sprawling theme park in central Florida is on the chopping block under the governing board Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed. The board on Wednesday teased millions of dollars worth of spending cuts to the area that spans thousands of acres and provided Disney with self-governing status. Among the cuts is $8 million the district spends annually on law enforcement provided exclusively to Disney’s properties, board chair Martin Garcia said during a public meeting.
Disney is in this fight because they dared to say gay, objecting to the DeSantis rammed law disallowing discussion of sexual identities in public schools. Termed the “Don’t say gay” law, it only set Florida back into the middle of last century. Disney knows that, and being a smart corporation that draws from a global fan base, had to stand up to him.
As it turns out a smart corporation, you know, takes money in exchange for services from most any peaceful demographic that wants to fork it over. Foolish governors attack smart corporations in a bid to appeal to degenerates wearing tinfoil. They create fiefdoms, and surround themselves with yes people.
Disney’s then-chief executive officer, Bob Chapek, publicly voiced disappointment with the measure, saying he called DeSantis to express concern about it becoming law. In a move political observers viewed as retaliation for Disney's criticism of the Parental Rights in Education Act, Florida lawmakers passed legislation that ended Disney's virtual autonomy in developing 25,000 acres in central Florida where its theme parks are located.
So this is what amazes me, because I did not know Republican legislators to ever come “after the money.” Growing up in Texas the rhetoric stopped at the buck. It is one of the biggest reasons they are bleeding support in the suburbs with Johnny Low Tax. They create this board and after years of trying to cast the Democrats as anarchists become so obsessed with Disney, they paint themselves as hypocrites and propose to cut park security funding.
The handpicked DeSantis Disney board of Destruction, is trying to defund your family’s vacation security providers. Now Mickey will object, if only to point out the political petard the board has collectively chosen to hoist themselves, and their dear leader onto, but realistically, $8m is a few good days of hotel bookings.
Disney is not in a position where they are imperiled by that amount of funding cuts. This board that Ronny created, developed out of spite and filled with his subordinates, is doing what people who are chosen for their lack of willingness to critically think do: not think.
The proposal came as DeSantis continually bashes Disney while campaigning for president because it disagreed with a law limiting how and when sexual orientation and gender identity can be taught in public schools and is waging a legal battle against him. DeSantis floated numerous retaliatory measures, including building a state prison on bordering land, increasing taxes, introducing more regulations, building affordable workforce housing and exploring the sale of distinct-owned utilities.
They weren’t appointed to think or decide for themselves.
And now we get to yell from the rooftops, that the board DeSantis built wants to defund the police.
As Frederick Douglass might have pointed out if he were alive today, the convincing argument will sometimes defer to the scorching irony.
-ROC
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