National Review’s Misguided Attack on Ron DeSantis

In the aftermath of Ron DeSantis signing into law a bill stripping Disney of its special status with its Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, leave it to the typical Neoconservatives at National Review to take issue with republican legislatures siding with global corporations with agendas for grooming children.

Enter National Review’s Charles Cooke, who penned his op ed “Ron DeSantis’s Misguided Attack on Disney’s Legal Status” to decry the actions of Florida Republicans. To Cooke, this represents an “ugly and ill-conceived mistake, a blemish on DeSantis’s otherwise mostly excellent gubernatorial record.” This is because DeSantis won when he signed the law and thus no further action was necessary. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As I stated in my article on boycotting Disney, they expressly stated that their “goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that.” In other words, they were openly saying they would engage in lobbying efforts and utilize the political system to effectuate change. They initiated this war after the bill was signed.

But Disney wasn’t “entitled” to it in 2012, 2002, 1992, 1982, or 1972, either, and yet, amazingly enough, the legislature showed zero interest in rescinding it when given the opportunity on those occasions. That it’s doing so now is ugly. That it’s pretending that it’s doing so out of a concern for “good government” is grotesque.

With many on the right calling for boycotts and Disney’s leaked videos expressing their admittedly gay agenda, the ire of conservatism is aimed against them. Unsurprisingly, the National Review prefer inaction to action. They prefer that conservatives do not scrutinize privileges and benefits extended to corporations intent on grooming children. Cooke’s argument relies on the premise that there was no interest in reviewing the status of the 1844 special districts located in Florida throughout the fifty plus years Disney has held it. He contends that the Republicans are acting in bad faith whereas the legislature initially negotiated the status in good faith.

“What’s Disney gonna do?” they ask, correctly. “Pack up and move to Illinois?” No, Disney is not going to do that, because Disney has invested massively in Florida, and because, as a result, its path is dependent on that initial decision. But, as with the other massive investments in the state, that dependency works both ways. Fifty years after its founding, Walt Disney World is deeply rooted in Florida’s soil, as a result of agreements the Florida legislature made with it in good faith. To poison that soil over a temporary spat would be absurd.

They cannot leave. As much as Greg Abbott is chomping at the bit for a Disney World in his state, Disney is married to Florida. After billions over the course of decades have been poured into the state, there is no Plan B (though there is a Plan Xi). That means the state has all the leverage in the negotiating, but Cooke would prefer Florida not weaponize it over a spat. Grooming children is no trivial matter. Disney’s conduct on sexualizing children, propagating Marxism, and Covid tyranny are antithetical to the Christian values America was founded upon.

[T]he record that Florida’s heretofore-admirable commitment to solving big and complicated problems should henceforth be regarded with an asterisk. That’s not “fighting.” It’s a tantrum.

As Cooke stated on Twitter, “There is no need for them to salt the earth, take revenge, or make Florida’s policies worse.” Cooke would prefer that DeSantis would do nothing while allowing corporations to do and say whatever they want. At the time of the bill’s movement in the legislature, I said that it would be a major test for Governor DeSantis, to which he has passed. Disney thought they could lobby, browbeat their audience, and swing their weight around to get what they wanted. They wanted DeSantis to back down, so they pressured him like the corporations did to Mike Pence on RFRA—a decision which marred Pence’s career until Trump. Instead, DeSantis brought the heat and called their bluff. He made Mickey bleed in a way no boycotts could ever achieve.

National Review was previously the home to the David Frenches and Jonah Goldbergs of the world and continues to linger into irrelevance behind abrasive paywalls. They conserve nothing. The only thing they desire to conserve is decorum. They want a party that whores out to the corporations rather than one that collects scalps. Meanwhile the voters become increasingly hostile towards global corporations who promote degeneracy and Marxism in our society. They want winsome politicians who drive the speed limit on the Highway to Hell. No more.