Some on the right and left have claimed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ conflict with Disney has been a failed PR stunt. This view requires one to ignore critical context, facts, and the evolution of the dispute. An honest account of events requires one to concede DeSantis’ battle with Disney has been an unabashed victory for the Florida governor.
A little over a year ago, Florida passed a parental rights law that forbade teachers from discussing sexuality with children in third grade and below. The bill also required parents to be made aware of any significant developments with their children regardless of grade level. This law upset the LGBT lobby, which falsely labeled the law as a “Don’t Say Gay” bill despite there being no mention of homosexuality in the text. Predictively, major media platforms co-opted the label in an attempt to paint conservatives as homophobes for refusing to use public schools to secretly “trans the kids” without parental consent and teach kindergarteners about sex.
The Disney CEO at the time, Bob Chapek, caved to a small but vocal group of Disney employees that took issue with parental rights in education bill and vowed to use the full weight of the company to overturn the law and to deny support for Florida Republicans in the future. For those unfamiliar with Florida politics, this represented an unprecedented move for the company that has a history of getting along with Florida Republicans and also getting whatever it wanted from the legislature. An accurate
