Picking Disney as your hill to die on is so stupid. Especially when Disney is one of Florida's big money makers. Like, I don't think the government should be beholden to corporations obviously, but actively antagonizing one just cause you hate gay people is a dumb move all around. Not to mention all of Disney's "support" for the lgbt community isn't exactly...sincere.
I rather insincere support over open hostility
Amen. At least insincere support normalizes supporting those groups as opposed to normalizing hate. :(
Not to mention all of Disney’s “support” for the lgbt community isn’t exactly…sincere.
For most companies being "woke" is just marketing to get more people buying their products. To wit: Pride Month for several companies.
Yeah I think it's known as "rainbow capitalism".
Which makes "Go Woke, Go Broke" that much more laughable. If "going woke" was so unprofitable, no major corporation would be "woke." If being "anti-woke" was profitable, Target would stock anti-Trans clothing, Disney would have movies where the only LGBTQ characters are the villains, and all movies would only feature straight, white, Christian men as the leads perhaps with a "dumb but sexy blonde" love interest.
As I see it, this whole debacle is as much proof as I or anyone should need that DeSantis is unfit to be president.
When the state's largest employer, one who had supported him in the past on many issues, dared oppose him on one single issue that had taken the national stage (where they could do nothing other than oppose or be seen as discriminatory), he decided to punish them. Not in any way that was even a little bit effective, but in a punitive and immature and ineffective way that has replaced an effective good government agency with a politicized useless committee.
His actions say to me that he is neither a good representative of Florida's people, nor a wise leader, nor even an effective politician. He is a child who had a temper tantrum when he didn't get his way, so he tried to smash his favorite toy and didn't even break it.
We can do better. We have to do better than that, for the good of the nation.
Luckily (or unluckily) national Republican voters overwhelmingly prefer tRump
Unlucky. I think Biden is a better candidate than either of them, but I think the American people deserve to have two decent choices to pick from.
I have no particular love for the DNC either or many of the Democratic candidates we've seen, but at least they manage to more often than not put forward someone who would at least make a semi-functional administrator who tries to execute some sort of plan.
And Disney didn't even strongly oppose DeSantis. It was a wishy-washy sort of opposition and DeSantis responded to it with a "I'm going to destroy Disney!"
Yeah, right. People can have their quarrels with how Disney operates, but you can't deny that Disney is a powerhouse. You do NOT want to get on their legal team's bad side unless your case is VERY good.
Would be an interesting hell if Disney packs up and leaves the state. Conservatives take over the property and business and rebrand it some kind of conservative Christian family theme park lol.
Have you ever been to Disney World? I've been there quite a few times. Packing up and leaving wouldn't be easy at all.
First of all, Disney World is huge. It's 43 square miles or over 27,500 acres. Disney would need to find an equivalent sized area in a state that wouldn't threaten to turn "MAGA Red" and that would have decent weather year round (i.e. no massive snow storms). It would also need to have a major airport nearby.
Next, Disney would need to rebuild all the infrastructure: roads, bridges, drainage systems, etc. They would need to rebuild all of the parks which would be a monumental effort itself. There are tunnels in Magic Kingdom that are used for employees. These would need to be rebuilt. Restaurants, hotels, and shops would need to be built. Employees would need to be relocated (or new employees hired). Animals would need to be transported from Animal Kingdom to the new park.
And while all this was going on, Disney World would need to keep operating. Building a New Disney World could easily take a decade even if everything went smoothly. Disney couldn't afford to just shut down Disney World for 10 years.
It would cost Disney a lot less money to just beef up their already impressive legal team and donate to politicians likely to take a friendlier stance towards Disney. Disney could likely fund every Democratic politician in Florida from dog catcher to governor and still spend less than if they rebuilt Disney World.
(This isn't to say that I'm a fan of companies buying favorable politicians. Just that it makes more financial sense for Disney to do this rather than rebuild.)
what if they tried to pack it up in a really big truck though
You'd need at least two trucks. Trust me. I'm an ingineer.
Acurate assessment. As much as I would like to see Disney scorched earth Florida, its not happening in the near future.
The other medium-term solution I could see is to begin winding down operations in Florida and redirecting resources to beefing up the other existing parks. Basically cut back all spending in Florida until the park park is barely breaking even. Let it sputter out slowly while expanding other properties.
That said, you're probably right that The Mouse really needs to drop some cash in Florida and drastically alter the political landscape.
I can already see someone asking for contributions for a Christian theme park and get millions in donations only to later declare bankruptcy due to running out of funds.
One of the rides will be called "The Crucifixion" where you get to carry a life-sized cross on your back miles before they tie you up to it for hours.
Disney would quite possibly literally salt the earth before they left.
Disney and Florida taking an L? Pop the champagne!
This is a horrible take that's shared by DeSantis and his cronies. It doesn't matter how many people lose, as long as "the right" people lose.
A multibillion dollar media conglomerate getting to run its own local government is bad actually.
I mean, yes. Corporations owning towns is problematic. But the way in which this was handled is significantly worse.
While having their own government generated huge potential for abuse, all signs point toward Disney actually being a pretty good steward. So it's not like this was some emergency. The takeover of the government could have happened slowly, deliberately, and in a way that did not destroy the district in the process. But that was not the point here. The point was to cause damage to Disney because they dared to disagree with DeSantis.
Notice that none of the other privately-owned towns in Florida are being stripped out. It's just Disney, and it's just because of revenge.
Due to the way this was done, an awful lot of people are going to needlessly suffer. Not just Disney employees, either. Disney attracts massive tourism to Florida, and that tourism money ends up all over the state. This is a self-own of absolutely epic proportions on DeSantis' part, and all of Florida is going to pay for it.
Corporations running towns. Versus fascist government regimes running town. Pick one.
True, but a state full of people isn't. I'm not here to defend a business. I'm here to remind that the point should be about the people.
We should celebrate people winning, not someone losing.
This is what happens when you can't help but use the apparatus of the state for your petty business squabbles. Florida is becoming unlivable, and this is where the state government's priorities lie.
"Florida is becoming unlivable."
I mean, yeah, sure, but there are Trans people out there! We have priorities! Florida has alligators though and they've survived for millions of years so Florida will be fine. The United States has only been around 200 years, those Trans people are the True Threat!™©®
Needs more mentions of "woke," "cancel culture," and "kids being forced into sex change operations by liberals after they give birth and have post-birth abortions." Maybe a light sprinkling of CRT for Outrage Nostalgia.
Still wild to me that a company can just own a town. This isn't the 20s or South Korea.
There's hundreds of special districts in Florida.
And the law that was written was very carefully drafted to affect only Disney. DeSantis wouldn't want to piss off The Villages.
Damn, never thought of that!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
More than 40 out of about 370 employees have left the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District since it was taken over in February, raising concerns that decades of institutional knowledge is departing with them, along with a reputation for a well-run government.
The Republican governor and GOP-dominated Florida Legislature took control of the district in retaliation after Disney publicly opposed a state law banning classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades.
It previously was named the Reedy Creek Improvement District when it was established in 1967 to provide municipal services like road repairs, waste collection and firefighting on the 25,000 acres (10,117 hectares) that make up Disney’s theme park resort in central Florida.
The new board members, though, have been accusing the previous administration of cronyism while at the same time hiring politically-connected associates to positions in the district or awarding them contracts, the former facilities manager said in his exit interview last week.
Last month, the district authorized a $242,500 no-bid contract to update its emergency-calls network with a company whose chief executive had served with Gilzean on the Florida Commission on Ethics, where both were DeSantis appointees.
Disney has sued DeSantis and the members of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board in federal court in Tallahassee over the takeover, claiming its free speech rights were violated.
The original article contains 970 words, the summary contains 223 words. Saved 77%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
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