This may be less important than the reproductive rights issue, but man, some of these characters picked by DeSantis to run the district that approves Disney property sure would be at home in Gilead. One of them is a Christian Nationalist preacher.
Disney should call his bluff and just shut Disney World down.
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Probably cheaper for Disney to buy the entire Florida Legislature.
We’re heading for a corporate cyberpunk dystopia anyway, right? Let’s at least get some entertainment out of it. 
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“Welcome, guests; to Disney’s Wonderful World of Abortion!”
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We need to get money out of politics, not pour more in.
Can we not make the rights of women, trans people, and POC a game show?
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When the veritable “history book” we’ve all heard that will one day be written this would be a ballsy move that thwarted the most potent factor of the fascist movement. Right now I think most of society is still in the “it will all blow over” stage. Unfortunately.
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And we can’t depend on corporations to do the right thing… I’d love it if they shut down Disney World, and I think it would be incredibly effective, but I also know that they will not do this…
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Well, setting aside the financial loss for the company there would be about 77,000 mostly-innocent Disney workers suddenly left unemployed in that scenario, along with many people who work in the surrounding community who work in the tourism sector. But the company should definitely re-think future investments and maybe focus on expanding its other parks instead.
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We can’t let fascists win based on “but jorbs”… Jobs are not worth letting trans kids be kidnapped from their homes, or let women die… People can get new jobs (or Disney can pay to move their employees elsehwere). Trans kids can’t undo the trauma they are facing, and a dead women can’t come back to life.
I get that I’m the REAL asshole here, to not want trans kids to be traumatized, or for women to die, but I am past caring about that. I’ll be an asshole if it means we start thinking about this as the emergency that it actually is.
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The sunk costs and economies of scare are to large to just walk away, even for future expansion.
I think Disney faces an existential problem here. They’re stuck in the old stereotype that Republicans are better for big business than Democrats, not accepting that this is no longer matches policy. Stuck in that mold, they have a problem with conflicting actions. On the one hand they need to get rid of Ron who wants to control the content they produce, on the other hand they like the republican policies of taking advantage of their workforce. They need to resolve this internal conflict with the one that is better for the company. Giving an outside culture censor control over the money making machine sounds like the worse outcome.
The action Disney should be taking is using it’s media might to campaign against Ron and get him removed from power never to advance a political career at all. Once they accept that today’s Republicans are different, this should be an easy choice. All the more easier when they accept that Democrats aren’t likely to impact their workforce as much as most of us would like.
The bonus effect, more related to the topic here, would be removal from power Republicans passing ever more draconian laws. For once, the power of the mouse’s lawyers could act for good.
Alas, they appear to be so risk adverse that they’re willing to accept adversarial control of their money making machine to avoid any conflict. In doing so, the doom the rest of us to deal with the consequences.
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What do you think is a higher cost? Dead trans kids and dead women? Or Disney taking a financial hit?
So they should do the right thing here. Call Desantis’ bluff, and pull up states.
That’s not how politics does or should work. The voters should get rid of him, but that problem there is voter suppression.
Again, the thing that matters here is FL descent into fascism. The more we treat this like politics as usually, the worse off things are gonna end.
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I honestly don’t know what the best course of action is but the idea that a single, for-profit corporation should be able to use its might to choose a governor makes me nervous, even if it would result in a better governor this time.
I’d much prefer a successful legal battle in which it is determined that the use of government machinery to punish a corporation for advocating for LGBTQ+ causes is a clear violation of law. And maybe some kind of criminal conviction of Ron that makes him legally ineligible for office.
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Agreed. I would like them stand up against fascism and for what’s right, but we have to acknowledge that corporations having far too much power in our society is a major part of the problem. The fact that we feel the need to depend on corporations to ensure our rights are protected.
Again, the right thing for them to do here, would be to pull up stakes, but they will not do that, no matter how much damage Desantis and the FL GOP will do to Floridians.
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But they won’t and we know they won’t, because most corporations contribute to BOTH parties and try to shape both parties to hedge their bets.
Again, I would like Disney to do the right thing here, but they won’t. Corporations will more often than not, support fascism, because they will go with who ever is winning and will let them exploit workers…
But as @orenwolf noted, the real issue here is FL descent into fascism and the impact it’s having on the victims. Despite the pressure campaign, it’s not really Disney…
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That was the original plan and it was changed once the problem was realized. The only change the current law did was replace the elected board with a state appointed board, nothing else changed.
This is definitely true. Their disdain for their workforce beyond its ability to generate them money.
This one is more questionable. The board and Ron have both directly said they will use the power of the new board to control Disney’s content. That’s either bluster or truth. Only time will tell and it’s a bet Disney is making that it’s only bluster.
Just like the fascist talking points were just talking points, until they were not and became laws.
Just like forced birth was a talking point, until it wasn’t.
It is a rare instance here where corporate interests to maintain it’s own self control is in alignment with individual interests.
It’s a monumental failure that they just give in. Maybe they’ll “win” the bet but doom the rest of us. Or, maybe they’ll doom themselves and all of us along the way too.
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Those are all things Disney could invest resources in. They could invest money, time, communication (all things they’re very good at) into overcoming voter suppression. To supporting voters, to increasing turnout, to getting people engaged in the issues at hand and how they impact everyone in FL. To supporting and boosting candidates that oppose fascist policies and showing how those candidates would be better for all of FL, not just for Disney. To countering the false narratives and boosting the true impacts of the laws being passed. Even better, they can use the truth instead of alternative facts to do this.
Money and time are still huge parts of creating political change. Disney has tons of both. Might as well use them for good. Reducing corporate money in politics would be nice, but until it happens better to have some doing some actual good.
That would be nice too.
The rolling over and just accepting it is very disappointing.
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Although I think that putting Christian Nationalists in charge of the board as reprisal for LGBTQ+ support is at least Gilead-adjacent I agree that the Disney stuff should probably be a separate thread. I don’t know how to split the threads though. Anyone else want to handle it?
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The problem for Disney is that MAGA Republicans are bad at pretty much everything except being loud, gun-toting bullies. They’ve all but killed a community college in Idaho:
I doubt the people Satan appointed to the board have the first idea about municipal infrastructure bonds.
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My understanding, wrt the “special district,” was that DeSantis basically shot the state of Florida in the foot with his action by taking responsibility for a bunch of debt and ongoing costs that was previously held by Disney. So, you know, no skin off their nose - Disney may have lost some control, but they’ll probably end up paying a lot less. Unfortunately corporate assholes will continue being corporate assholes, and Florida will continue performatively shooting itself in the foot. Disney only recently came to the conclusion that not being actively shitty to their gay/trans/women employees was good business, but they don’t really care, and I don’t think it takes much to balance out the scales, from their perspective, when Florida starts being shitty to them.
Yeah, the end result of the “but jorbs!” thinking is, “We can’t stop building the death camps - there are so many construction jobs on the line!”
I suspect they’re smarter than that, and know it hasn’t been true for a very long time. Instead they’re no doubt giving even more money to Republicans in order to bribe them into not being shitty to their business (that trumps the well-being of the majority of their employees). Also I suspect the Republicans drive to constantly lower corporate taxes is worth far more to Disney than any largely meaningless, performative attacks by Republicans that doesn’t impact their profits.
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Im savoring a fantasy vision of Disney not only leaving FL for some other successful site, but also reorganizing somehow so that the site can’t be legally linked back to them. When FL gleefully sells the land to some new capitalist fun park wannabe, they discover the grounds are somehow newly laden with environmental waste* to a degree that is difficult to clean up.
- Not of a type that would poison the water supply, though, in my fantasy vision
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