Ever since Governor Ron DeSantis punished the Disney Corporation for opposing his “Don’t Say Gay” law, I’ve been wishing that the Magic Kingdom would pull up stakes and move to another state. It’s one of Florida’s biggest employers and attracts millions of tourists every year. Surely it would be welcome in any other state, especially one that does not insult and humiliate any of its employees.
Turns out that Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank had the same idea.
He wrote:
Mickey Mouse needs a sanctuary city.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Hades) got his state legislature this week to abolish the favorable tax arrangement that brought Disney World to Orlando and kept it there for 55 years. It’s the latest salvo against corporate America from the Trump right, which has already threatened Twitter, Facebook, Citigroup and Delta Air Lines. But now they’re canceling Mickey and Minnie? That’s just Goofy…
Suddenly, sad times are upon the Happiest Place on Earth. Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, has promised to “grant Mickey and Minnie full asylum in Colorado” and offered Disney a “Mountain Disneyland” retreat from “Florida’s authoritarian socialist attacks on the private sector.” Many Disney fans online are urging Disney World to leave Florida.
Of course, you can’t just put a resort with six theme parks and two dozen or so hotels on a magic carpet ride to, say, New Jersey. (As it is, central Floridians could be stuck with more than $1 billion in debt and a massive property-tax increase because of DeSantis’s anti-Disney vendetta.) But Disney is the place where dreams come true, and mine is that the whole of Disney World, which employs roughly 80,000 Floridians and attracts tens of millions of tourists every year, will take the second star to the right and straight on till morning — and abandon Florida entirely.
DeSantis would be left with a 25,000-acre house of horrors in Orlando: an abandoned resort in a state nobody wants to visit, thanks to Ron’s Runaway Railway.
His “don’t say gay” legislation makes Florida unwelcoming to LGBTQ people. His voter-suppression laws and race-baiting attacks on teaching history and race make Florida hostile to Black, Latino and Asian Americans. Rising antisemitism (Florida’s most famous resident just had a film screening at Mar-a-Lago characterized by antisemitic swipes at Mark Zuckerberg) gives Jews pause about the state. DeSantis’s MAGA-signaling anti-immigrant and antiabortion laws repel more large swaths of the population. His banning of math textbooks should send educated Floridians packing. His opposition to Medicaid expansion and Florida’s excessive covid-19 death rate over the past year have sent many Floridians to the morgue.
Soon, there won’t be much of a constituency left. As J.D. Vance, a Republican Senate candidate from Ohio, put it in a just-released private message from 2016, “We are, whether we like it or not, the party of lower-income, lower-education white people, and I have been saying for a long time that we need to offer those people SOMETHING.” So offer them a theme park! Rename Disney World’s ruins DeSanty World.
DeSanty World would make the Carousel of Progress turn in reverse, reimagining the Disney classics to suit its growing audience of Snow White nationalists. Pinocchio would dream of becoming not a “real boy” but a Proud Boy. Lady Tremaine, the wicked stepmother, would become the heroine of Cinderella, championing parental rights. Bambi would be seen from the hunters’ point of view. Aladdin’s new soundtrack would warn of “A Whole New World Order,” and Mulan would be reviled for spreading the coronavirus. Brave Frollo would fight valiantly to free France of minority groups and the disabled. And all would cheer for QAnon’s own Captain Hook as he battles to prevent villainous Peter Pan from grooming the Lost Boys.
Some attractions would require only minor changes. The Barnstormer roller coaster (“a staggering series of stupendous stunts”) would be dedicated to DeSantis instead of Goofy. The Mad Tea Party and Festival of Fantasy Parade could pretty much stay as they are, and the Hall of Presidents would just be dispossessed of its 46th inductee. DeSanty World would build a wall around the Alien Swirling Saucers. And, because of the park’s new open-carry gun policy, the whole thing would become a Frontierland Shootin’ Arcade.
DeSanty World would surely sack the China Pavilion at Epcot and its planned film “Wondrous China.” This would be replaced by a Covid Theater (no masks allowed!). A new 101 Dalmatians Dog Whistle attraction would feature DeSantis, who said, when he had a Black opponent in 2018, “The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up.” The existing Under the Sea Journey of the Little Mermaid would be repurposed to promote offshore oil. The Frozen Ever After boat ride would refute the climate change hoax. Splash Mountain, already getting re-themed around “The Princess and the Frog,” would now swap the evil voodoo practitioner Dr. Facilier with the more evil Dr. Fauci.
A thoroughly remodeled Tower of Terror would have the MAGA faithful screaming as Ursula lures them into gender reassignment surgery, Maleficent tries to enchant them with universal health care, and the demons Pain and Panic attempt to vaccinate them.
Then, after all but the QAnon faithful had self-deported from DeSanty World, the few remaining stragglers would sing as one: It’s a small world after all.
How about Disney taking DeSantis with them…
an aside- “Fox deals in Kremlin propaganda so why not freeze Rupert Murdoch’s assets” (Guardian)
They can’t, Disney doesn’t do real horror!
A lovely thought, but as unlikely as one of their fantasy movies coming to life. I never pin my hopes on huge corporations doing “the right thing”, because their true goal is to make money. All the pledges to stop giving money to the insurrectionist politicians have come to naught. Disney will work out things with DeSantis, quietly, and the status quo will be unshaken.
I suspect that the whole thing is just another bit of political theatre. It doesn’t go into effect for a year, plenty of time for the legislature to back off, cut a deal, after Ron secures the Repugnican nomination based on being Mr. Tough Guy.
I love it but it might have to wait till global warming makes Northern Climates more temperate or destroys the drinking water in that S- Hole state .
Disney is a giant multi-national corporation worth billions, it will do just fine in spite of this putrid neo-fascist hate monger, Ron DeSantis. How do the GOPers, Trumpers and MAGA crowd who live in the Disney enclave feel now about DeSantis and, by extension, Trump? Do they feel betrayed? I doubt it, they will probably blame Biden, the Democrats or the Green New Deal for this situation. There’s no cure for stupid, for the millions of Americans who think the election was stolen and that Trump is the real president. Trump, the guy who wanted to launch missiles into Mexico. From msndotcom: Donald Trump proposed ‘quietly’ launching missiles into Mexico to take out drug labs run by cartels, his former Defense Secretary has claimed in his new book.
Mark Esper, who worked for Trump from July 2019 to November 2020, is publishing his book on Tuesday. end quote
And this mouldering monster could be elected president again! It’s too horrible to contemplate and DeSantis would be equally as catastrophic.
Who wanted to launch missiles into Mexico, to use the military against BLM protestors and innocent asylum seekers, and to have the police and military SHOOT these people. This is the standard-bearer of the Republican Party now. This is what the Greying Old Party has become. And the next guy won’t have Esper and Milley (and even Barr and Pence!) standing in his way because he will be smarter than Trump, but equally amoral, and will get the right henchmen in place from the start, people like Stephen “Goebbels” Miller.
Se Santos is a jerk, but why do people think Disney corps is a progressive ally? Just asking.
Disney is not a progressive ally. It remains a large anti-union corporation. Disney disagreed with DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Disney depends on the public to make money, and it wants to appear like an inclusive company, which it is, to some extent. Disney is an equal opportunity employer with LGBTQ creative types as employees. Vengeful De Santis felt the need to strike back at Disney like the snake that he is.
By the way Disney laid off my husband’s cousin two years before she could collect a pension. That is certainly not progressive.
I am reminded that the English partitioned the territory which it had come to dominate over a couple of centuries. I assume everybody knows how that turned out, with clashes and bodies as one stream of people moved to Hindu India while another moved to Muslim Pakistan.
I am reminded of the dividing of other groups throughout history, usually with the same tragic result.
I know Milbanks is writing a satire here, but I see my country in division.
I feel this tragedy like Horatio at the end of Hamlet as he looks up from the scene of death to hear the march of a conquering force.
We are two countries with one set of borders. This is not going to end well.
How about Disney not leaving and earning genuine credibility by supporting the fight against the right-wing attempt to undo basic democratic rights. Florida’s the perfect place to start. It could support organizations exposing the role of dark money in Florida politics and the bait and switch promises of Republican politicians on behalf of American – and, yes, Russian – oligarchs. It’s about time that Mickey and Minnie had a real job. They pitched in during WW2. Time to look outside their wonderland at the attack on the democratic rights of their neighbors and join the fight to reverse the growing threat.
Yes
The duped public thinks corporations are socially liberal which drives the conservative religious to vote for the pro-business Republicans. It’s effective duplicity.
Apparently, a Nazi-theme park might be attractive to some people in Mexico who are not smart enough to realize that white supremacists hate them, too: https://www.rawstory.com/nazi-wedding/
Latinos should understand that the right wing is not their friend. Trump wanted to drop a bomb on Mexico. https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/defense-secretary-esper-trump-wanted-to-quietly-bomb-mexico-13948371781
Here’s hoping that their children Reinhard and Hanna grow up to lead the resistance against Nazis like their parents!
Are this Nazi Mexican couple aware that Mexico actually joined the US in fighting the Nazis during WWII? Mexicans died fighting Nazis and Naziism. Probably not and if they do know, they don’t care. From the picture, the guy doesn’t have that stupid Hitler mustache. The Nazis were defeated in 1945, Hitler and many of the top Nazis committed suicide and yet this noxious pseudo philosophy still persists and has appeal in 2022? These dolts love the uniforms, all the goose-stepping and Nazi pomp but conveniently forget the slaughters, tidal waves of human blood and the fact that Nazis regarded Mexicans as sub-humans. You can’t make this stuff up.
So funny. So insane. I do like the idea of Disney pulling up stakes.
DeSantis and Donald Duck In Math Magic Land
It is all just Magic. The book scandals, the Pandemic, the $5B in tax revenue.
Just Fantasyland. Mickey Mouse Political Theater.
Several of the people reviewing the DeSantis Florida math textbooks have no expertise in math.
At least one doesn’t live in Florida.
He’s a right-wing activist from Michigan
https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/state/florida-math-textbooks-werent-evaluated-by-just-math-experts
This explains why, at least, one history buff we found on the list
got the gig.
Jordan Adam is a civic education specialist at Hillsdale College in
Michigan. Hillsdale is a conservative college and popular speaking spot
for Republican leaders including former Florida Education
Commissioner Richard Corcoran.
Adams is part of a leadership team at Hillsdale working to expand its
network of charter schools across the U.S. using the “Hillsdale 1776
Curriculum.” Critics have raised concerns the curriculum promotes
politically conservative views of American history.
Digbysblog
Critics can find Hillsdale because it’s been presented as evangelical protestant (in reality, the faculty are a convergence of conservative Catholic and protestant). Those same critics ignore Ilya Shapiro at Georgetown Catholic University, faculty like Amy Coney Barrett from Notre Dame and, the links between Charles Koch and Catholic University of America.
How many Hillsdale graduates are on SCOTUS? How many protestants are on SCOTUS?
How many politically active evangelical protestants are there at the highest levels for every John Eastman, Michael Flynn, Leonard Leo, Paul Weyrich and William Barr?