Liberal corporations think they can bully people around.
They’ve been getting away with it for years.
But one stunning development proves Disney regrets its war with Ron DeSantis.
Disney made the mistake of wading into politics, and now the company is reaping the whirlwind.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis recently signed the Parental Rights in Education bill into law, which simply prohibited public school employees from engaging in classroom discussions about gender identity and sexual orientation with kids in K-3.
The proposal was so reasonable, even a majority of Democrats in the state of Florida supported it.
But that didn’t stop activists within the company to goad Disney CEO Bob Chapek into taking action.
Chapek originally wanted to stay out of the controversy, but he buckled to pressure from within, and perhaps from external forces like wealth management firm BlackRock, which is imposing ESG (environmental, social, and governance) scores on companies in an effort to nudge them in a “woke” direction.
DeSantis did not cave to the pressure, and Disney is all the worse for wear.
The company’s stock price has taken a nosedive since late last year, and precipitated in recent weeks.
Hey Disney shareholders – was it worth it? pic.twitter.com/BSmqzeqqD6
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 7, 2022
Disney chose an inopportune time to pick a fight with DeSantis and the Florida Republicans, who just pulled the company’s special tax and regulatory exemption.
The company also turned off consumers when shocking videos from a virtual town hall leaked.
In the videos, executives openly talked about a “not at all secret gay agenda” being carried out in the children’s content.
SCOOP: I've obtained video from inside Disney's all-hands meeting about the Florida parental rights bill, in which executive producer Latoya Raveneau says her team has implemented a "not-at-all-secret gay agenda" and is regularly "adding queerness" to children's programming. pic.twitter.com/eJnZMpKIXT
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 29, 2022
Others at the company bragged about getting gendered language like “ladies and gentleman” removed from the theme parks.
DeSantis is giving conservatives a roadmap on how to fight back against “woke” corporations that try to impose their will on the people.
DeSantis said of Disney, “I also think that you have companies like a Disney that are gonna say and criticize parents’ rights, they’re gonna criticize the fact that we don’t want transgenderism in kindergarten and first grade classrooms. If that’s the hill that they’re gonna die on, then how do they possibly explain lining their pockets with their relationship from the Communist Party of China? Because that’s what they do, and they make a fortune and they don’t say a word about the really brutal practices that you see over there at the hands of the CCP.”
If companies want to get political and pander to the left, then Republicans should stop supporting them financially.