Powerful people and organizations do not like Ron DeSantis
…. Which is why I do.
In a recent article, Alex Berenson again praises Ron DeSantis for being the most conspicuous politician in the world who challenged the disastrous lockdowns and other nonsensical government responses.
So far so good.
Berenson, however, changes direction when he criticizes DeSantis’s “cultural warrior” planks. Berenson is particularly critical of DeSantis’s many fights with the Walt Disney Company.
“… much of the rest of what he’s doing seems performative and stupid - and self-defeating. Disney has become his white whale,” writes Berenson, who says Florida’s governor should lay off the Sunshine State’s most important corporate citizen even if it is “an annoyingly woke company.”
For my part, I think DeSantis should keep doing exactly what he’s doing. In fact, now that he’s running for president, DeSantis should add about 1,000 other woke companies to his target list.
From my admittedly gullible or naive perspective, a serious person running for president should focus on key areas that must be changed if our country is going to self-correct and not flush its past accomplishments down the toilet.
It doesn’t get enough attention, but one of the greatest problems facing America today is its major companies have become increasingly “woke,” politically-correct, liberal and radical. Furthermore, these giant companies increasingly seem to be in bed with Big Government.
While some critics label this “crony capitalism,” more political observers are starting to see it for what it’s really becoming - borderline fascism. If I remember my political science, fascist nations are distinguished by a disturbing alliance between government and the most powerful and wealthy companies in those nations.
I think few readers would dispute the veracity of the following statements:
The largest companies in America - all of them - have become increasingly woke.
They are all supporters of expanding government control and all seem to have cozy relationships with governments at all levels.
As we saw with Covid, America’s largest companies always support “The Current Thing” (and the Current Thing is almost always wrong … and dangerous).
When you think about this, it seems impossible that no major company in America boasted a “leader” brave enough or principled enough to go against The Covid Current Thing, a course trajectory that devastated large swaths of our population and also trashed nine of our nation’s 10 Bill of Rights.
(I’m also unaware of a major company that’s called BS on the Climate Change scam - which was the Current Thing before mRNA vaccines and “content moderation” became the Current Thing).
Just like 100 percent of “pack journalists” think exactly alike on key issues, we also have 100-percent conformity among our largest and most powerful corporate citizens.
The vast majority of the country’s giant companies supported or support lockdowns, censorship, non-vaccines, the Green New Deal, ‘LGBTQIA agendas, hyper affirmative action, cheap illegal-alien labor, outsourcing of jobs and, probably soon, central bank digital currencies.
While their executives and shareholders are making money like Al Capone, these company CEOs ask their customers to pay more for increasingly-smaller packages of items made with cheaper ingredients, products increasingly made by robots. Or if these widgets or services are produced by homo sapiens, they’re humans who live in China, India or Vietnam.
One also strongly suspects these mega companies don’t like competition from much-smaller upstarts.
These companies have learned that not challenging the Current Thing - supporting the government positions - is the easiest solution to keep the 900-pound gorilla of Big Government off their backs and produce Congressional allies who will thwart real competition.
In short, Big Government is in bed with Big Business. To some of us, this is an ominous development that needs to cease.
Enter Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ….
By now, Gov. DeSantis has picked many fights with Walt Disney. (Say what you want about Florida’s chief executive, but he’s not throwing sand on some 99-pound weakling on the corporate beach).
Disney is the wokest of the woke. (For a few examples, see bonus paragraphs in the Reader Comments).
Gov DeSantis obviously views Disney as a company that symbolized the worst corporate trends in America, a company that cares as much about force-feeding social agendas on the world as it does providing a quality product or service to customers.
Beyond its woke bona fides, Disney is representative of the cadre of companies eager to remain as thick as thieves with our rulers in Washington D.C., Davos, Brussels, or wherever these club members gather in secret to work out details of their future 10-point plans.
In my view, any politician pushing back against such companies is performing admirable, necessary and long-overdue work.
Picking a few fights with a company like Disney might even qualify as good politics. That is, if enough voters belatedly conclude that the ideological initiatives of these companies are now causing irreparable harm to, and further polarizing, the nation.
Here one might ask executives of Anheuser-Busch if consumer blowback is a real thing. And then this question: Could consumer blowback become … voter blowback?
One could also ask members of the Murdoch family if firing Tucker Carlson (yielding to the demands of the woke mob) added “value” to Fox News.
From political rock star to dangerous neocon …
Still, Berenson might have a point if DeSantis’s various battles with Disney do end up being his “white whale.”
In recent political history, it’s hard to find an example of a former rock star political dissident who, seemingly overnight, became a frog …. a globalist or neocon frog at that.
It seems clear to me that one of those “memos” that change narratives was widely-distributed several months ago.
According to the new meme, DeSantis is a dangerous fraud and, take your pick, is a mangy “neocon” … “corrupt,” “Jeb Bush II,” a “globalist,” even a “book banner.” (The sanctimonious “influencers” making this charge are perfectly fine with the effective banning of all contrarian Covid books like The Real Anthony Fauci.)
In watching DeSantis’s Q rating rapidly plummet, my first thought was the Powers that Be simply concluded DeSantis was the greatest threat to their chosen candidate, “Joe Biden.”
However, it occurs to me that something deeper might be going on with this effort to harpoon the dangerous white whale that is Ron DeSantis.
My new thought is corporate America - and the Science/Medical/Big Pharma Establishment - might simply be sending a message to all political candidates who are not fans of crony fascism.
That message is: Don’t challenge any of our club members, club members like the Walt Disney Company, Pfizer and CDC/NIH/FDA Inc.
If some political leader is not afraid to take on Mickey Mouse himself (or even Real Science himself, Anthony Fauci), the same maverick politico might soon be taking on … Coca-Cola, JP Morgan Chase and even BlackRock (another company DeSantis irked with his efforts to expose this company’s efforts to encourage “socially-conscious” investing.)
A message being sent?
What DeSantis might be receiving is a variation of the water-boarding treatment/message previously received by dangerous disinformation spreaders like Julian Assange, James O’Keefe and Edward Snowden … or that the “racist” Ron Paul experienced 11 years ago when his grassroots’ “liberty” campaign could no longer be dismissed.
The message isn’t subtle: “Don’t mess with us, fellow. We still run this show and you are not going to take down any of our members.”
No one made DeSantis enter politics or, once there, pick fights with formidable heavyweights like Disney, Fauci, “Joe Biden,” Pfizer, Big Pharma and even members of the MAGA fraternity, who think DeSantis should stick to running Florida and, I guess, believe Donald Trump is entitled to run unopposed in the Republican primary.
No one has become more cynical about elective politics than I have, but even I plan on voting this presidential cycle. In fact, I plan to discombobulate my neighbors in Troy, Alabama by placing a Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and a Ron DeSantis political sign in my front yard.
My hope is that my neighbors will pick up on the issues most important to me. These issues are Covid tyranny, my alarm about Big Brother censorship, and the evisceration of our civil liberties. But you can throw in my distaste for woke, semi-fascist mega corporations like Walt Disney.
I’m all for power to the people, which, for me, means a lot less power for Big Government and its sycophant partners in Big Business.
It seems pretty clear to me that Ron DeSantis has touched another political third rail in railing against our increasingly woke culture.
Since so many influencers and narrative-protectors want him to cease and desist, I say damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. If our rulers hate and fear this particular campaign plank, DeSantis should double down on it.
At the moment, Disney World’s Splash Mountain ride is closed because it offended perhaps four or five people with its “Song of the South” characters.
Despite the fact that millions of people queued up to ride Splash Mountain, Disney executives were mortified their customers weren’t more socially sensitive and the company is now spending tens of millions of dollars to replace B’rer Rabbit with Princess Tiana, who happens to be black.
A year or so ago, an executive at Disney’s movie studio bragged that the company wouldn’t produce a film where at least 40 percent of its characters were minorities or members of an authorized oppressed class.
If you’ve seen a recent Disney movie, you can quickly tell everyone got this memo.
As a sports fan, I noted how efficiently Disney transformed ESPN into an ideological CNN. (I knew ESPN had jumped the shark when its now defunct print magazine published a cover story on the perils of Global Warming.
I’d add that Disney was so committed to the Current Thing that they refused to re-open Disney World long after Gov. DeSantis told all businesses in his state they were free to make money again.
Good article Bill! I thought Alex Berenson had missed the point somehow about DeSantis. The Govenor seems to be about the only man standing in the political world anywhere who actually appears to have both beliefs and common sense in abundance! I certainly don't agree with everything he says and I think he should have held off until Trump had finished with politics. I would enjoy seeing a contest between Robert F Kennedy Jr and Ron DeSantis - two men with integrity having more in common than they may realise. Not going to happen though.
As for Disney and all those Woke corporations snuggled up with the governments of the world - well, they would do well to remember that they actually need customers! I hear Disney is struggling to get people to see their movies these days because they are so boringly "correct". People don't want to be lectured by their cartoons, beer cans or car company!