DeSantis, Disney, and the political fallout

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Disney on Thursday upped the ante in its battle with Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, and it cost his state 2,000 white-collar jobs.

Disney is scrapping plans to build a $1 billion office complex in Florida, citing “changing business conditions,” according to a memo provided by a Disney spokesperson.

The decision comes at a time when the company is openly feuding with DeSantis, who is expected to officially enter the 2024 GOP presidential race next week, CNN reported Thursday.

A spokesperson for DeSantis said it was “unsurprising” that Disney would cancel the project “given the company’s financial straits, falling market cap and declining stock price.”

Disney, along with the broader media industry, is grappling with a difficult advertising environment and a massive writers strike. Earlier this year it announced it would be cutting 7,000 jobs as part of a cost-cutting effort.

Separately, the company confirmed Thursday that it would shut down its Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser resort at Disney World just over a year after it opened.

The popular attraction “will take its final voyage” at the end of September, Disney said, adding that it is working with guests to rebook reservations for later in the year.

The campus in Lake Nona, Florida, in the greater Orlando area, was expected to add 2,000 jobs, many of which were set to be relocated from California.

Disney’s power play showed that CEO Bob Iger wasn’t bluffing when he asked whether Florida wanted the firm to “invest more, employ more people, and pay more taxes” last week. The timing of the Thursday announcement seemed calculated to damage the governor ahead of the most important week of his political career to date, when he is expected to soft launch his White House bid and make the all-important sell to fundraising bundlers. Disney did not specifically blame DeSantis for the move, partly citing “changing business conditions.” But the message was clear.

Disney’s latest swipe at DeSantis set off multiple political reverberations. It offered a huge opening for ex-President Donald Trump and other Republican primary candidates to argue DeSantis is blundering through an ill-conceived battle with the corporate giant and to accuse him of squandering jobs and business in pursuit of higher office.

Trump’s campaign gleefully declared that DeSantis got “caught in the Mouse Trap,” after predicting weeks ago that the governor would lose his face-off with Mickey Mouse.

The fact that some of the new jobs in the Disney project were expected to be transferred from California also undercut a narrative central to the DeSantis platform that businesses and citizens are fleeing liberal areas for a dynamic state dubbed “DeSantisland” by his supporters and which he calls “the free state of Florida.”

More fundamentally, the latest sign DeSantis was outmaneuvered by Disney threatens to highlight damaging perceptions Trump and other critics are seeking to sow about his candidacy – that despite his thumping reelection win in November, DeSantis lacks basic political skills and strategic nous. This theme has been gathering steam following a series of missteps by DeSantis – who for months was seen as a severe threat to Trump – as he prepped his campaign. His collision with Disney also calls into question whether the bullying persona that the governor adopted to appeal to the conservative base is grounded in reality.

In other words, has DeSantis picked an enemy – that after decades of mastering societal currents and protecting its image in the courts – is tougher and better at politics than he is? If so, what might this augur for his capacity to thrive in a coming clash with a candidate who is as feral as Trump?

DeSantis may have met a rival who is as tough as he is
In a series of moves over the last year, DeSantis created the “Mouse trap” for himself. He recently slammed Disney during a visit to South Carolina, a key primary state and declaring: “They may have run Florida for 50 years before I got on the scene, but they don’t run Florida anymore.”

The dispute between the governor and Disney dates back to the firm’s objections to legislation that DeSantis signed last spring that restricted the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity for kindergarten through third grade, dubbed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay bill.” The measure is part of his targeting of cultural issues and his campaign against “woke” diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The strategy is calculated to appeal to conservatives who believe America’s traditional values are under attack from a more diverse and inclusive society. But the governor’s clash with Disney – a huge firm that appeals to millions of mainstream Americans and has sought to become more inclusive in recent years – could hint at difficulties DeSantis might have in selling such policies toward more moderate voters in a general election.

DeSantis claimed in his recently published autobiography that Disney had been pressured by “leftist activists” to take a position that alienated Floridians, including parents and children, and that had nothing to do with its core business. He justified his subsequent effort to take control of a special tax district that gave Disney wide autonomy by saying that it had ceased to act in the interests of Florida. “The Walt Disney Company had decided to bite the hand that had fed it for more than fifty years,” he wrote.

Disney, in response to the governor’s moves, has accused DeSantis of infringing its right to free speech and has launched a lawsuit that could shadow his presidential campaign.

DeSantis rivals pounce
Trump’s camp issued several statements, including one that crowed that “President Trump is always right,” and recirculated his previous prediction that DeSantis would be “absolutely destroyed by Disney.” The situation is a win-win for Trump: It allows him to portray DeSantis as weak and politically naive and also to take shots at an impressive economic and political record in Florida the governor is using as a bedrock of his campaign.

Ron DeSantis’ failed war on Disney has done little for his limping shadow campaign and now is doing even less for Florida’s economy,” the Trump campaign said in a statement.

Another possible GOP primary candidate, former Vice President Mike Pence, also leveraged the Disney announcement to jab DeSantis. He argued the governor should have simply taken the win in the legislature over the teaching of gender issues in schools.

“I like Walt Disney, not woke Disney,” Pence said on Fox Business. “I just don’t believe it’s in the interests of the people of any state for a government to essentially go after a business that they disagreed with on a political issue.”

Democrats also weighed in, foreshadowing general election attacks they could make against DeSantis should he win the Republican nomination.

“Gov DeSantis is more interested in running for President than running the state of Florida” and is trying to “out-Trump Trump” in the GOP primary, Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on the “Situation Room.”

“And now the people of Florida are paying the price,” he said.

Given his political exposure on Disney and the combative political image that is central to his White House hopes, DeSantis probably has no option but to further escalate the showdown.

So much for De Santis creating jobs for his constituents.

So much for De Santis creating jobs for his constituents.