FL Politics: “The Battle of Reedy Creek could be the Gettysburg of America’s culture war crusades.
Today, in the first wave of the battle, the Florida Senate dutifully passed the demands by General Robert E. DeSantis to attack and dismantle Disney’s land holdings in Orlando.
Even for Floridians, Reedy Creek is obscure; a small, strange legal fiction created by the State of Florida for Walt Disney World in 1972. It was an utterly esoteric remnant in state law until Gov. Ron DeSantis set his sights on breaking Disney to his will.
The DeSantis attack on Disney will cost Florida taxpayers at least $2 billion, and residents of the two counties where Disney resides an average of $2,200 more per household annually in local property taxes. DeSantis is working hard to kill the golden goose of Central Florida tourism.
This stunt is all about giving DeSantis more ammunition in his nonstop culture war as he prepares to primary Donald Trump in 2024, and the Florida Legislature has covered itself in infamy for playing his game. Just as Washington Republicans lived in terror of Trump’s horde, Florida House and Senate Republicans live in fear of DeSantis and his mob, including the ones who troll on the taxpayer’s dime.
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If you’re a major donor to DeSantis or the Florida GOP, you’re fine … until you’re not. You’re best friends … until you’re sworn enemies. DeSantis is a radical populist and the grunting, seething hatred stoked in his base by the agitprop machine over everything and everyone who disagrees with the Dear Leader’s plans is his only real weapon.
Republican leaders once at least mouthed the correct pieties about the free market, free speech, and government staying out of the workings of private enterprise. Today, the message is quite the opposite. Government control of corporations’ speech, internal policies, and behavior is precisely what the DeSantis assault on Disney’s rather anodyne objections to his “Don’t Say Gay” bill represents.
DeSantis and Co-Governor Pushaw understand that the great unwashed MAGA masses would much rather hear about Ron DeSantis, warrior against the vast and dangerous — and imaginary — army of pedophile groomers, rather than see DeSantis respecting the free-speech rights of a corporation and its leadership. As much as Florida Republicans bleat about the imaginary threat of communism — which exists almost entirely in college dorm bullshit sessions and the sleepy dreams of doddering old Bernie Bros — they sure love its tactics.”