After Disney outsmarted his authoritarian takeover, Ron DeSantis thinks he’ll look like a smart dictator again by imposing new taxes and tolls on visitors to the park.
April 8, 2023

C&L’s Red Painter has a ‘splainer on how Disney cleverly stripped DeSantis’ hand-picked governing board of power. That was in response to DeSantis’ previous retribution against Disney for daring to criticize his Don’t Say Gay bill.

We can just imagine how badly getting outmaneuvered hurt DeSantis’ authoritarian fee fees. Especially when he’s slipping in the polls, too. He’s reacting just like the tinpot dictator he wants to be. In addition to vowing to take back control of the board, he thinks he’ll punish Disney by making the rest of us pay more, as Orlando Sentinel explains:

“Come hell or high water, we’re going to make sure that the policy of Florida carries the day,” DeSantis said in a speech at Hillsdale College in Michigan on Thursday night, first reported by Politico. “And so they can keep trying to do things. But ultimately we’re going to win on every single issue involving Disney, I can tell you that.”

“[N]ow that Disney has reopened this issue, we’re not just going to void the development agreement they tried to do, we’re going to look at things like taxes on the hotels, we’re going to look at things like tolls on the roads,” he said. “We’re going to look at things like developing some of the property that the district owns.”

Yeah, nothing says “I’m for Florida” like making it more expensive for Floridians and others to visit and do business with one of the state’s largest employers. Or referring to that employer as “a joke.”

But the one who should be laughed at is DeSantis. I mean, who says things like this with, presumably, a straight face?

“I don’t know what S.O.B. is gonna succeed me, but they ain’t going to have anything to do,” DeSantis added. “Because I’m taking all the meat off the bone.”

What's no laughing matter is that Floridians have real problems, as Red Painter also laid out. Instead of focusing on solving them, DeSantis is engaged in a weenie-wagging war with the House of Mouse.

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