Ron DeSantis Says His Deranged Vendetta Against Disney Basically Saved America

Remember Ron DeSantis’s ridiculous war against Disney? It’s been a minute, so here’s a quick refresher: After Disney spoke out against the Florida governor’s bigoted “Don’t Say Gay” law last year, DeSantis lost his mind and dissolved the company’s self-governing status, forcing it to, among other things, pay more taxes. Shortly thereafter, he installed five handpicked individuals to Disney’s new oversight board, including a guy who had reportedly taught a fake history class in which he claimed Irish immigrants were enslaved in America. Later, he threatened to further punish the company through any array of absurd measures, including building a prison complex next to the Florida theme park.

Ultimately, Disney decided it had had enough of this petty tyrant, and sued DeSantis and members of his administration, alleging a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” for “expressing a political viewpoint unpopular with certain state officials.” That lawsuit is currently pending, yet such details didn’t stop the Florida governor and 2024 presidential hopeful from claiming in a recent interview that not only had he “won” the battle against the company, but—wait for it—his campaign of retribution had basically saved America.

That’s right: Speaking with Family Leader president and CEO Bob Vander Plaats, DeSantis declared, “A lot of these old guard Republicans were telling me that somehow Disney, when they call the shots, you just got to bend the knee…. We fought back against Disney, we had a big battle with them, and we won the battle against Disney.” He added: “I’ll tell you, the fact that we were willing to stand up to [Disney], that had reverberations across this country. Because I think you do have some CEOs that they’re not necessarily bought into this agenda, but it’s the path of least resistance…. Now they can say, Well, gee, I don’t want to end up like Disney. People may fight back from the right now. So I think we helped kind of refocus business and America in a better way. I think it was going off the rails.”

It’s not clear what DeSantis thinks his embarrassing feud with one of the largest employers in central Florida has done to help the country, but it’s not surprising that he’d prefer to focus on his fight with Mouse Town instead of, say, his poll numbers, which are very much in the toilet.