Tallahassee Orbanism is incompatible with representative government.
A few weeks ago, my NR colleagues Michael Brendan Dougherty and Charles C. W. Cooke had an opinion duel about the DeSantis–Disney war. I’ve meant to add my thoughts and hope I may be forgiven for doing so belatedly, since the controversy is likely to persist and since — as I will argue — it raises a question of principle that extends beyond the particulars.
(Recall as background — with thanks to Wikipedia — that in 1967 Disney was granted jurisdiction over the “special taxing district” in which Disney World is situated. Therein it exercised municipal-like authority over such matters as “land use regulation and planning, building codes, surface water control, drainage, waste treatment, utilities, roads, bridges, fire protection, emergency medical services, and environmental services.” After Florida passed a law in 2022 prohibiting instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in public-school curricula before the fourth grade — a prohibition that has since been applied through grade twelve — Disney’s then-CEO said that the company opposed the law and would work toward its repeal. In response, Florida’s legislature passed, and Governor Ron DeSantis signed, a law abolishing the special district. Various plot twists followed, and the whole convoluted dispute now flows through courts.)
You should consider the arguments of Michael and Charlie in full, but here is a reductive paraphrase.
Michael: Suppose Disney decided to open a strip club — would the State of Florida be obligated to go on giving it special treatment? Of course not. The free market did not create Disney’s special district, so the revocation or amendment of that district cannot be considered an affront to freedom.
Charlie: No, you are changing the subject with your talk of strip clubs. Disney was retaliated against for its speech, the content of which is immaterial to the principle that government retaliation for speech is wrong.
Michael: No, the content is not immaterial. Disney changed, and we all know it — look at these queer characters it is putting in children’s entertainments; just look at these photos of scantily clad men at Disney World’s gay-themed day. Disney presumably got its special district in part because it promulgated good values. Since those values have changed, there is no need to preserve its privilege.
I see the factual and moral questions somewhat differently from Michael, but let’s leave that for a footnote.* What I’d like to emphasize is, first, that there is no apparent disagreement between Michael and Charlie about whether Disney faced retaliation — or, if you prefer a more neutral term, repercussions — for its speech and expression, but only about whether this was justified. And second — the crucial distinction — Disney did not face retaliation/repercussions for its artistic speech and expression, nor even for speech about curricular policies. Something much more specific and sinister happened: Disney was singled out and punished in response to its criticism of a legislative act.
Targeted repercussions for those who speak or organize politically against legislative acts is inimical to the spirit of representative government. It is at odds with the very presuppositions of representative government, and become a general practice it would make representative government impossible.
Why?
Here we need another distinction: between the ritual of politics and the results of politics.
The results of politics are the many and sundry laws and regulations that range over all areas of public concern. How high should taxes be? Should we declare a war? What types of conduct should be illegal? How much alcohol may brewers put in beer? That vacant lot over there — how big a house may the owner build on it? Etc.
The ritual of politics, by contrast, is the totality of practices — formal or informal — by which we reach the results of politics. The ritual includes, most obviously, the functions of the three branches of government. But because we mean those who make our laws to represent us, the ritual also includes selecting or replacing representatives periodically, speaking for or against the laws they wish to enact or have enacted, and lobbying or organizing for or against the same.
For a governor and a legislature, then, to react pissily** to the participation of some individual or association in the ritual of politics — to make an example of it for doing so, no less — is to signal that if individuals or associations do not like how they are being represented and choose to make this known, they will pay a price for having done so.
To isolate what is wrong with that — and why the content of political speech and participation truly is immaterial to the wrongness of retaliating against it — imagine that Disney had objected not to Florida’s curricular law but to some arcane matter, perhaps a small change in the formula by which property taxes are calculated, and that the governor and legislature had avenged themselves in the same way. Everything in my previous paragraph would still apply. It would be no less as if the governor and the legislature were simultaneously rulemaking body, referee, and extremely aggressive combatant in a boxing contest.
It is an artful dodge to claim, as the Orbanites in Tallahassee do, that Disney is a “woke” corporation with unwelcome “California values” and that it is motivated by profit rather than by the public good. The purpose of this rhetoric is to make it seem that Disney is not a participant in the ritual of politics, seeking representation alongside other participants, but rather is a hindrance to the people, who are the true participants. But corporations no less than the people (a collection of individuals, of some of whom a corporation is composed) are subject to the state’s absolute and formal coercion. We did not set up the ritual of politics in such a way that only majorities of atomized individuals would be allowed expression in the matter of how they are represented and coerced, nor in such a way that the right to speak and lobby would depend on a favorable judgment of the purity of the speaker’s heart and the cogency of his thoughts.
Who ever established that a corporation headquartered in California could not have legitimate interests in Florida, where it is a huge property owner and employer and on the perception of which its tourism businesses there depend? Why should it not seek to have those interests represented as it sees fit? Would anyone have thought, at the time when limited and specific powers were granted to it within its district in 1967, that Disney had thereby lost the right to comment on or participate in politics in Florida, or that in commenting on and seeking to influence statewide laws it was anything other than a private association doing what must be permitted to any and all of the represented and coerced? Disney and, we can be sure, the beneficiaries of many other special districts had been speaking and lobbying for a long time. But then a populist backlash met an ambitious governor quick to learn the uses of demagogy.
Promised Footnote(s)
*When deep moral disagreements underlie a surface discourse, there is a tendency to import one’s presuppositions into the perception and description of things. This is understandable, but it can lead to character assassination by way of imprecise rhetoric or loose association.
A perfect example of this can be found in the DeSantis-campaign ad that shows a Disney employee — who is a mustachioed man wearing a dress — as he greets a family with children. The ad presents this as a “secret sexual message.” But it is not a secret sexual message. It is not a sexual message of any kind, for it has nothing to do with sexual conduct. If it is a secret message, the message is that a mustachioed man may wear a dress. Parents might object to this or they might not; they might find it obnoxiously political or they might not; they might allow their children to see such a thing or they might not; if they do allow it, they might comment on it or not, including or not an articulation of the judgment that for a man to wear a dress is okay or that it is not. But nothing is advanced except prejudice by an inflammatory and inaccurate description that stokes moral outrage (or the wrong moral outrage, if you find a man in a dress per se to be morally outrageous — which I do not).
Similarly, we can all remember being children, seeing men and women display affection in public, and understanding the idea of romantic love in nonsexual terms. Many a classic Disney animated movie presupposes just such an understanding. But the very inclusion of sexual-minority characters in a work of entertainment, no matter how modestly they are presented, is now often regarded as an abomination. The double standard is palpable.
Michael is fairer-minded, and to a degree I take his point. But I still do not see the photos he linked to as suggestive of a strip club. In certain instances one may easily enough question the taste or modesty of some attendees, but even these strike me as no worse than what one might see in a Florida beach town during a college spring break — which would probably not be a good destination for a family vacation but also would not be casually likened to an adult-entertainment venue.
Of course, just as in a perfect world there would be no need for moralistic tokenism in movie plots and minority characters would instead show up organically and complexly, in a perfect world there would be no need for identity-themed days at amusement parks. Instead we would all be mature enough to accept that not everyone holds the same views or lives in the same way; that in a pluralistic society (which every uncoerced society is or becomes), to mingle and get along despite moral disagreement is not just possible but necessary; and that the proper standard for state coercion is the prevention of direct and obvious harm.
As to the idea that Disney was granted its district as, in significant part, a gold star of moral approval: I’m doubtful. The Wikipedia article quoted above emphasizes as the district’s primary original justification that Walt Disney intended to construct a model city, a plan he later abandoned. There also seem to be many special districts in Florida that are not value-laden; two examples that Disney’s current CEO has cited are special districts granted to the Villages Retirement Community and to NASCAR.
**The impression that the state’s changes to the district were made in revenge for its criticism of a legislative act may fade as the district’s new DeSantis-appointed board and Disney brawl their way onto new turf. For example, the board recently announced that it had ended Disney’s diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Nonetheless, the fight began as it began and raises the question of principle we consider.
Regarding that DEI decision: I think a company should be free to have such programs or not as it sees fit. Similarly, Anheuser Busch should be free to run disastrous ad campaigns based on a misperception of its interests (and if Florida’s pension fund decides that the company is undermining shareholder value, it may perfectly well sell its stake and invest elsewhere). Private actors will in general judge their own interests and correct their own misjudgments more reliably, drawing on more information that is directly relevant, than will a central authority thinking and coercing in broad categories.