DeSantis Confronts the House of Mouse

CLAY: The resistance to the authoritarian state is now centered on the Sunshine State — which, Buck, used to be a totally chill, crazy place — and they have emerged as bastions of liberty. As Ron DeSantis has classified it, Florida is an oasis of freedom.

BUCK: Yeah, they’ve added American flags and tricorn hats to their neon flip-flops. I love it.

CLAY: (chuckling) And so earlier today, there has been a lot of discussion about Disney deciding to wade into politics, and Disney decided to go full bore behind the idea that the Parental Rights in Education bill — which said kindergartener, first, second, and third graders were not going to be taught about sex-related issues — which virtually every parent who’s listening to this right now agrees with wholeheartedly.

They decided, Disney did, that this was the “don’t say gay” bill, and they thought they could score points by trying to attack Florida over this. By the way, I’ll mention that Disney is in Hollywood, and nobody said anything about any sort of gay issues being pulled out of the most recent Harry Potter movie in order to play in China, which is the definition of “don’t say gay.”

But when China does it, actually does it, everybody shuts up in Hollywood. But Ron DeSantis now is saying: Hey, Disney, if you’re gonna get involved in analyzing Florida state laws then we’re gonna reexamine our laws which have given — for decades — beneficial treatment to Disney associated with Disney World. Basically, what this allows…

With the legislation they have there right now, Disney has sort of unbridled ability to develop its lands as it sees fit without the larger government apparatus being involved. And Ron DeSantis earlier today said, there’s a special legislative session that is going to exist, and one of the things that they are going to debate is whether Disney should retain that special exemption status. Listen to this.

In addition to congressional reapportionment, this week’s special session will include termination of legacy special districts and removal of exemptions from the big tech accountability law. pic.twitter.com/67sF4E113I

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) April 19, 2022

BUCK: So, Clay, first off this is Ron DeSantis doing what should have been done in every other Republican-governed state when it comes to redistricting, which is: Write the maps the way that you think they should be written. There’s always some degree of arbitrariness in congressional districts, and you can see in some places, the congressional map is like Rorschach blot test.

CLAY: Just crazy what they do to try to protect some districts and make others more or less competitive. Ron DeSantis is writing a map — or, rather, the state legislature, which is Republican controlled, is writing the congressional map — the way that they want it to be, which is what should be done in these states, okay? That’s one thing. I don’t know why… Republicans go, “Oh, but if we do it then they’ll do it.” Trust me. Every place —

BUCK: They’re already doing it.

CLAY: New York, where you live, they have an outrageous… By the way, question for you. Where does the gerrymander come from? You’re a history guy. Do you know where the word gerrymander comes from like the gerrymander of a district?

BUCK: No. Where does it come from?

CLAY: Well, your tricorn hat. This is my opportunity to show off my nerddom. I believe it’s Elbridge Gerry, who is a congressman I believe from Massachusetts. (Our staff can confirm that I am correct here) and he drew a district or was the beneficiary, perhaps, of a district that was one of the first to be gerrymandered.

They are doing their best to ensure that he was able to stay in office, and that is where the phrase gerrymandered comes from. I believe Elbridge Gerry, who was a Massachusetts congressman, who was the first beneficiary of having a district basically built specifically for him to stay in power. So what is going on here…

BUCK: By the way.

CLAY: I might not have nailed every single aspect of that, but off the top of my head pretty good. I didn’t even think about it. But you’ve been to Disney World, I’m presuming, at some point, right?

BUCK: I think I was like 6. I don’t remember it at all.

CLAY: Oh, okay.

BUCK: Yeah.

CLAY: So I’ve been to Disney World a ton over the years, and so if you have been to Disney World, they have tens of thousands of acres that they bought up. Memorably, Walt Disney himself went around in disguise to buy up all of this central Florida farmland for low prices. They didn’t know what exactly was going on. What happened was Disneyland, everybody built all around Disneyland.

And even though they built the amusement part, Orange County out in California, Disney felt like so many other people were making money off of his creation. So he wanted basically his own world; so they early computer days, figured out where’s the best place to have an amusement park that could be opened 365 days a year, went undercover to at that point middle of nowhere Florida.

Orlando was a tiny little speck of a town, comparatively — bought up everything, and they, then, were given by the legislature basically carte blanche to do whatever they wanted in terms of development with that land. What DeSantis is saying is, “Okay, you want play in politics? We’ll fire back on politics with you as well.”

And this is important, Buck, because what’s Disney gonna do? It’s not like they can pick up Disney World and move. They’re locked into Florida forever. This is not some, hey, this company’s gonna relocate and go to a new state. No, no, no. Disney World’s always gonna be in Florida at Orlando.

BUCK: DeSantis was a college baseball player. This is a brushback pitch. This is, “Okay, Disney!”

CLAY: Look at you, with all the sports analogies today!

BUCK: I pick up on some things. DeSantis is saying, you guys want to play rough in the political world? This can go both ways, and this is the way that it should be. I think one of the failings that you see of Republican-governed states is their attitude is just whatever woke corporation wants to come here, we’ll give them our great tax treatment, our low regulations.

We’ll give them tax breaks even. Well, are they actually being good stewards of the system that they’re benefiting from once they come into this state? Or they working to undermine the very system that they benefited from after they’ve left the hellhole that they created of needles and human waste on the streets in San Francisco, let’s say?

These are things that should be taken into account. And in Florida they actually do seem to be taking this into account. Austin, Texas, we love you, but I’m looking at Austin, Texas, right now, ’cause they got a lot of wokesters that have taken over there.

CLAY: Well, I think the easy way to think about it — bushback pitch is a good analogy too. If somebody punches you in the face and you consistently say, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you felt the need to punch me. That’s the way that a lot of Republicans respond to business, right? Like, “Oh, they’re gonna respond to woke politics? Boom! I’m gonna punch your values right in the face.” And then you say, “Oh, I’m sorry.

“I’m so disappointed that you felt the need to punch me. Could you please not do that in the future?” Sooner or later, the corporations get used to the idea that they can always punch you in the face, and they can respond to the woke element of their population, and the rest of the people…

To your point, Buck: You try to be friendly, and you try to be logical and rational, and at some point you have to throw a bunch back, right? You have to let it be known that you’re not just a punching bag — and that, to me, is what DeSantis is do in Florida.

BUCK: I mean, this is how politics works in every other state. I mean, you look at New York. When Governor Cuomo was running things, you went against Cuomo? Never mind the Democrat Party, he would find a way to make you pay.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: Now, I think with him it was overly personal and kind of solipsistic. It was about Andrew Cuomo all the time.

CLAY: Wow.

BUCK: Yeah, you know.

CLAY: That’s a tough word to even pronounce. I recognize reading it, I didn’t know how to pronounce it.

BUCK: I try to work ’em into the discourse here, some of those fancy words. But I think it was all about him. In the state of Florida, I think it’s about protecting what Florida has become. So there’s actually a bigger mission here when it comes to polling, for example, Disney’s… You know Disney is basically saying, if there’s a law in Florida that our woke executives don’t like, we’re gonna go to war with the Republican Party in the state of Florida. And it’s like, “Okay, that’s a two-way street,” and that’s the way it should be.

CLAY: And, by the way, bad move about you Disney because they may lose a lot more than they gain to the extent that they gained anything at all.

BUCK: What’s your take, Clay, real quick, on trademark protection? Because I say life of the author for a lot of this stuff is what it was supposed to be. Disney keeps getting extensions —

CLAY: Yeah, they kept getting them.

BUCK: — so that Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are trademark items. Doesn’t mean that you know if they lost this, they couldn’t still sell them, but other people could too. It’s been over a hundred years I think. Aren’t we at the point where with some of these things it’s getting close to the century mark?

CLAY: Yeah, Mickey Mouse is basically a hundred years old, and I think should enter into the public domain, and that would be a significant factor. By the way, the way that Disney — and I think it’s brilliant — got initially wealthy was by taking stories that were already in the public domain — Cinderella, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, I believe.

Whatever story is out there — Snow White — he just turned them into animated films. Those stories, those fairy tales were already out there. So he’s done this before and taken advantage of the public domain. Mickey Mouse should be in the public domain. I don’t think they should extend the copyright restriction any further, in my personal opinion.