Forget it Jake, it's Disneyland

Disney is the largest media and entertainment company in the world, a measurement based on a Forbesian equation of assets, profits, workforce population and (positive) visibility.

When Disney executives met with Florida state officials in the mid-1960s, they did so in the hope of getting "special purpose district" status for their Disneyland follow up, Disney World, in Orlando.

SPD status would allow Disney World to be self-governing, paying only for services it uses (water, sewage, etc.) and not contributing taxes in support of the larger state.

Disney World is the state's largest private employer, and its recent removal of racist displays and language has provided current Florida governor Ron DeSantis a platform on which to enter the race for the Republican nomination in the 2024 U.S. election.

Back in April 2022, state Republicans unveiled a bill to turn over control of Disney's SPD tax department to a five-person committee of DeSantis's choosing. It is believed the decision to push back on Disney's SPD status is based not on finance but on ideology: Disney's support of social justice issues that Republicans decry as "woke". In response to the bill, Disney notified its legal department, and the two parties have been at war ever since.

Whether DeSantis gives a shit about Disney is beside the point. He wants to be president, and the only way to do that is to woo those Republicans who held their nose and backed Trump in 2020, of which there are said to be many. How many of that number supported Trump in reaction to woke behaviour is said to be a very white part of the "many."

I am guessing that a much larger number of Republicans who supported Trump in 2020 did so because they loathe the same governments that Walt Disney loathed after having to deal with the City of Anaheim and the State of California concerning the mother of all theme parks, Disneyland. So the real issue here is not the elimination of an extra-territorial corporate city, but one that is helping parents raise their children without the racisms they were exposed to as children themselves.

And if Disney should emerge successful, what would the measurement of that be? A land run by corporate executives whose god is a mouse surrounded by an even larger land run by a child-like narcissist who wants to be a despot like the other kids running world powers? There should be a ride for that. A cartoon character piloting it. Printed on our children's bedsheets.