I know I sound like a broken record (scratched CD, corrupted MP3, whatever), but Steve is 100% right here about the all-out push by every Murdoch outlet to make President DeSantis happen:
Also: We should be boycotting the whole state. Every business. No vacations, no conventions. Not a dime until DeSantis is gone.
— Steve M. (@nomoremister) April 1, 2022
I’m on board with a boycott even though I’d be collateral damage; we have to keep this sociopath out of the Oval Office. But the depressing truth is it’s probably too late for an effective boycott because DeSantis, with the help of Fox News and other far-right propaganda outlets, is successfully creating consent for Republican cultural and economic control through disinformation.
Case in point: DeSantis is currently in a showdown with Disney over the Don’t Say Gay law. When the state operated as a comically corrupt but still functionally capitalist and democratic entity, a right-wing political crank who took on Big Mouse over a culture issue would get squashed like a palmetto bug at a pest control industry picnic. Maybe not this time:
Ingraham: When Republicans get back into power, Apple and Disney have to understand one thing: Everything will be on the table, your copyright/trademark protection, your special status in certain states, and even your corporate structure itself… pic.twitter.com/7kKhPH07Rs
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 2, 2022
What Ingraham is describing here with her trademark lock-jawed, menacing smugness isn’t “choosing where your dollars go,” and it sure as hell isn’t legitimate regulation of industry. It’s fascism.
As Mussolini and others demonstrated, fascists use the power of the state to control businesses by punishing opponents and rewarding supporters. Ingraham justifies it like her fascist forebearers did, by saying it’s necessary to “strengthen the state” or, as Ingraham put it, for “the good of the consumers.”
A mad scientist in the laboratory of fascism that is Florida in 2022, DeSantis has openly asserted control over businesses and public institutions, demagoguing COVID mitigation measures and intimidating schools and businesses that confront racial issues or assert that LGBTQ individuals and families (particularly trans people) are valued members of our communities. He didn’t pioneer these techniques, but he’s deploying them more successfully than any other Republican in America.
The aim is to whitewash history, erase LGBTQ people, and nullify diversity and inclusion initiatives, but Republicans don’t say that. They’re repackaging bigotry as Lee Atwater did a couple of generations ago. Instead, they say, “Stop making white children feel guilty,” and, “Don’t sexualize first-graders.” The fact that businesses like Disney and Apple and teachers were already not doing those things doesn’t matter. The Republican rebranding campaign seems to be working in Florida. It might work nationwide.
I’m not sure what we can do about it, aside from calling bullshit every time the moral panic talking points emerge, supporting non-fascist candidates for public office (i.e., Democrats) and voting fascists out at every opportunity. But make no mistake, fascism is here in America, and it’s wrapped in a knock-off Gadsden flag and has the whiff of a burning cross. And the window for stopping its advance is closing.
PS: About that Van Zant video up top: the NoKo-style tribute to Dear Leader song is accompanied by a montage of images of DeSantis mixing with ordinary citizens, and except for a nano-second glimpse of the back of a security agent’s head, the people are 100% white, which is weird because Florida certainly isn’t. I don’t think that’s an oversight.
different-church-lady
We should be relived they’re pushing DeSantis, because this far out the nominee is rarely who they say it’s going to be.
Spanky
You’re right, down below! It is a depressing post. :^)
germy
Villago Delenda Est
News Corpse needs to be given the IG Farben treatment.
Villago Delenda Est
I might also note that “grooming” is what fundigelicals do to little kids to add them to the flock that will sustain the “parsonage” and the private jet of the pastor.
hells littlest angel
Watch out for the new Election Police, whose brief is sure to expand to include saying bad things about elections, thus making voters uncomfortable.
PJ
@different-church-lady:
My only take on this is that the moneybags who finance the GOP have been desperately searching for a candidate who can beat Biden (and they know Trump isn’t it). Just in terms of presentation to the GOP base, most of the other likely candidates (Cruz, Hawley, etc.) can’t cut it in the least, but they think De Santis can, and they may not be wrong there.
But would De Santis actually appeal to close to 50% of US voters? My gut reaction is “no”, and that there is no obvious candidate who would have appeal both for the MAGAts and the US electorate, but I was wrong in 2016, so I don’t really put much faith in my gut reaction anymore.
debbie
@different-church-lady:
It doesn’t feel to me like DeSantis could win if he was the candidate.
germy
Sunrise, Florida Policeman attacks his own:
topclimber
Universal Studios aka Comcast is the other big theme park in Florida. They spoke out against J.K. Rowling’s transphobia a few years ago, but are ducking the Florida fight for now.
They sure need to be told that they aren’t going to pick up park market share by humoring the bigots.
Brachiator
The GOP Nutcase Squad is going to go after Disney, a corporation which sued daycare centers for painting Disney characters on their walls?
Good luck with that.
Disney don’t like it when you fuck with their money.
Baud
DeSantis is running to Biden’s left! #2016Called
eclare
@germy: Wow. But it’s just a few bad apples, right?
Kelly
fixed
germy
@eclare:
The good apples get choked and then threatened.
John Revolta
I LOVE that the Repubs are taking on Disney. WDW is the biggest tourist attraction in the world. DeSantis must be tearing out his hair- it’s the worst possible time for this to come up. Never mind 2024- he can be gone in November. Politicians come and go…… Disney is Forever. Pass the popcorn.
PJ
@Baud: It’s funny, in both senses, but I don’t think the online leftists and journalists will be fans of De Santis the way they were of Trump. They admired Trump’s reflexive cruelty and willingness to say whatever bullshit came into his worm-riddled brain, but those traits are innate to Trump, and they are calculated in De Santis.
Archon
@Brachiator:
And Disney is basically a mom and pop store compared to Apple.
Ruckus
You know republicans used to be such nice people – NOT.
Russia has really not changed at all and neither have rethuglicans. They still want to be able to steal everything. Reality, your rights as a human – which to them you are not, money – all of anyone’s but their’s – which is what they’ve already stolen, public anything which keeps you from having an actual life and costs them some of that grifted/stolen money.
Fifty years ago my rep was a republican and a member of the John Birch Society and still helped his constituents. The current day rethuglican party is far worse than just being a member of the John Birch Society. The JBS wanted to limit government and wanted extremely limiting laws, to create a society that effectively resembled a Nazi prisoner of war camp. The current day rethuglican party wants to create that Nazi prisoner of war camp for everyone but the leaders because they think that they can steal all the money that way. They certainly can’t rightfully earn money, they provide nothing positive for anyone but their own selfish asses. Also they didn’t understand that a Nazi prisoner of war camp didn’t actually create a positive cash flow but they think putting us all in one would.
Baud
@PJ:
Not saying that DeSantis can’t win or be worse than Trump if he does, but Trump was pretty unique both as a person and the particular time in history he took advantage of.
different-church-lady
Deleted, insane FYWP malfunction.
Betty Cracker
@John Revolta: DeSantis deliberately picked a fight with WDW because he thinks they’ll back down, and I wouldn’t bet the farm that they won’t.
John Revolta
@different-church-lady: This. In 2014 everybody KNEW that the GOP nom was gonna be Scott Walker, no contest. Oh, unless maybe it was JEB!
Ruckus
@Baud:
SFB also said all the right words to the rethuglican masses. He’s not confined to normal human speech patterns or words because he’d not in any way a normal human. He is a normal conservative though. He’s bigoted, he likes unearned money (as he’s incapable of actually earning any – a bag person at a supermarket actually earns money – SFB has never earned a dollar.) And vova thought he could control SFB. But he’s SFB and has all the brain power of a head of cauliflower.
John Revolta
@Betty Cracker: If that’s true, I consider it a bad move, up there with Putin’s. Maybe worse than Putin’s in that when the smoke clears, Putin will still be in power in Russia.
PJ
@Baud: It’s a terrible thing to acknowledge, but one good thing about TFG is that, at least for 2024, and possibly for as long as he lives, every GOP Presidential candidate has to calibrate their behavior based on his, and lower it accordingly, which, as long as the better angels of our national nature have a slight edge*, means they will lose.
*by no means guaranteed, but holding for now.
Gin & Tonic
Sorry for naked link, can’t embed from phone
https://twitter.com/maximeristavi/status/1510285381580857352?s=21
The Thin Black Duke
@Betty Cracker: Why would Disney back down?
Thor Heyerdahl
I haven’t read all the threads over the last few days but this seems like a BFD
In a stunning victory, Amazon workers on Staten Island vote for a union (NPR)
Joe Hill smiles from beyond the mortal coil
steve g
DeSantis still looks like he has no chance from where I sit. I can’t listen to the guy’s voice for more than two minutes, which is not a good sign. He will be the Dukakis candidate of the GOP – looks fine on paper, but just not a winner in person. I don’t think he will make much of a dent at the national level.
Brachiator
@Baud:
A lot of people think that the GOP has always been bad. Maybe so, but Trump unleashed something unhinged and feral in the party and his supporters.
But Trump was an accidental authoritarian. He was restrained, I think by a childish insecurity, a desperate need to be loved, even by people he was fucking over.
But he leaves behind Trumpism as a GOP tool, populist authoritarianism. And DeSantis is happy to take up the cause.
DeSantis is a determined, nasty piece of work. He wants to fight the culture wars more than Trump ever did. Trump used appeal to rancid GOP values for his own interests. DeSantis may not be a true believer in his heart of hearts, but his is willing to go further with this nonsense, making it the center of his appeal to voters.
Xavier
DeSantis is unfortunately more likely to be elected than Trump. The presidency tends to goo to relative newcomers on the national scene ( Trump, Obama, Clinton, even Bush Jr.)
Kay
The thing about Disney is they’re really good at what they do. It is just hard for me to believe that the low quality DeSantis/Fox hires know Disney’s customer base better than Disney does.
JoyceH
@steve g: I agree. DeSantis has all the authoritarian cruelty of Trump, but none of the colorful wackiness that made Trump such catnip for the media. He’s not just unpleasant, he’s dull about it. Not a ratings bonanza.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gin & Tonic: This is of course an atrocity, but still, a no fly zone could lead to an even greater atrocity, featuring glowing in the dark. NATO can’t take that risk, no matter how heartbreaking Russian barbarism is.
Villago Delenda Est
@JoyceH: Which may be the very thing that saves us from this fascist shithead. The Village still needs to be nuked from orbit, though.
Kay
It will never stop being funny that the “cancel culture” panic – which a lot of (allegedly) smart people glommed on to- culminated in Right wingers taking state action to threaten speech and impose a specific Right wing cultural viewpoint on both public and private entities.
It was a DISASTER for speech.
Kent
Exactly. At this point in 2014 the top GOP candidates were in no particular order: Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie. All three of them GOP governors who were supposed to know how to translate their particular forms of GOP malevolence from the state level to the national.
Shakti
@PJ:
I don’t think they’re searching for charm, likeability or a popular platform because they’re counting on suppressing the vote enough so the people who hate the policies aren’t counted. After January 6th, I though Cruz, Hawley, and McConnell could absolutely hack it as members of a ruling junta with just enough brain cells and administrative savvy not to make cartoon Trump mistakes of pissing off business men too much.
The only people excited by DeSantis are out of state RWNJ like who slobber all over everything he does. As an average voter, I can’t think of one thing he has actually done for anyone who actually works in the state and doesn’t vacation or retire there. I always thought it was shady as hell that the felon voting restoration amendment passed but this guy squeaked it out?
Kathleen
@Brachiator: My tiny focus group of friends includes fanatical Disney fans. Disney seems to touch people at a deep level. My gut feeling though I was wrong about 2016 result is that Disney will win this fight. This is the issue that may have effect on the squishy middle of the road voters.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
This is not a war. This never was a war.
This is an assault on an entire people, not a war against a country. Russia is attempting to liquidate an entire population. vova may not be insane, in the mental health concept, but he is in the human concept of life.
Mai Naem mobile
The Van Zant song sounds like really crappy music. I know this sounds shallow but I don’t think DeSantis will win because I don’t think he’s that physically attractive. His face seems asymmetrical and he’s kind of ‘lumpy’ looking. You don’t have to be hawt to be POTUS but you need to meet some minimum standards.
Kathleen
@Kay: I agree.
TonyG
Almost a half-century ago Johnny Van Zant’s brother wrote a song kissing the ass of George Fuckin Wallace — and now this dweeb writes a song kissing the ass of DeSantis. Something is not right with that family.
TonyG
@Kathleen: Well, Trump is as outwardly ugly as he is inwardly ugly. I think that the ugliness is a feature, not a bug, for the members of that cult.
Kay
@Kathleen:
Millions and millions of people were going to the theme park and watching the movies and buying the products and they were horribly offended by “wokeness” but just did not know it until DeSantis told them?
Wouldn’t Disney have noticed how unhappy their customers were? Why didn’t Right wingers stop going all on their own? They were planning trips to theme parks that they hate? Seems odd.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay:
Rationality is not one of their strengths.
Kay
@Villago Delenda Est:
But rationality about their business and brand is one of Disney’s strengths. They’ve been very successful at this a very long time. I’m guessing they’re better at it than DeSantis.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay: Unquestionably. Disney knows their biz well. DeathSentence thinks he knows things, but, like Lord Voldemort, does not.
Kay
Why do conservatives want to target Apple and drive them out of business? What’s the cultural/moral offense? Hiring gay people?
Maybe they could draft and publish a code for us all. What cultural/social offenses are forbidden and will be met with state action.
different-church-lady
They’re not trying to get Disney to back down. They’re making sure they keep the high-grade junk flowing into the MAGA veins. They’re probably better off if Disney does put up a fight.
Villago Delenda Est
@different-church-lady: Good point. This is all about performative nonsense to appeal to the cultists. Who eat this rancid shit up.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@PJ:
That’s my gut reaction as well.
Most of the ‘independents’ who voted for Trump viewed him as a business man and a known quantity from the carefully crafted persona of his TV shows. That they mistook a facade for reality never registered with most of them.
DeSantis, on the other hand, doesn’t have an national public image independent from Fox News and right-wing media. He may do well among the far right and much of the center-right, but DeSantis is not going to play well in the middle.
His positions are too far to the right, and too offensive. And his onstage presence is … middling at best. He comes across as the annoying autocratic middle manager who won’t stop repeating everything he heard on Fox News last night.
Nationally, I don’t think he’ll play much better than Santorum.
In a way, that may be true for the entire GOP. I think they may have finally swung so far to the right, that even the centrists won’t follow them there.
A Ghost to Most
Florida gone fascist, you say? Hoocudanode?
Chip Daniels
Ok I’m old.
Van Zandt as in Steven??
James E Powell
@Shakti:
Polls show DeSantis is popular in Florida. Decent people are repelled by him, but decent people are in the minority there.
LivinginExile
The real question of course, is would Putin support DeSantis.
PJ
@Chip Daniels: Van Zant as in Lynyrd Skynyrd. Ronnie, RIP, was the one with the brains in that family.
PJ
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
From your keyboard to the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s orecchiette . . .
MagdaInBlack
@Chip Daniels: Good lord no, Little Stevie would never. This is ex Lynard Skynard brain trust.
As PJ got there first.
CaseyL
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
I’ll believe that when I see it – in election results.
JoyceH
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
I knoooow! These people should be locked in a room and required to watch episode after episode of Celebrity Jeopardy until they learn not to equate an actor with the character he/she plays. I never got over that woman interviewed before a Trump rally explaining that she KNOWS Trump is a great businessman, because she watched every episode of The Apprentice.
BTW, have you noticed how Zelenskyy hasn’t said a WORD about how well his old sitcom is doing on Netflix? Another metric of the awesomeness of the man. (Though comparing with Trump is a mighty low bar to cross, actually…)
debbie
@Kay:
I think they know the base’s kids even less. How many kids would willingly forgo Disney World because of some obscure nonsense from their parents?
Calouste
@Lacuna Synecdoche: Since WWII, all Republican presidents have either been celebrities (Eisenhower, Reagan, shitgibbon), or riding the White House coattails of those celebrities (Nixon, Ford, Bush 1&2).
DeSantis is neither.
Another Scott
@John Revolta: dick_nixon made much the same point.
(repost)
and similarly:
The FL Lt. Gov. was going to be on NPR ATC on Friday. I missed most of it, but she seemed to think the way to win an argument was to say “woke” a lot. I don’t think people outside their cult were impressed.
Giant companies are powerful until they’re not, but DeSantis and his minions aren’t that smart. Did they bend the cruise lines to their will? Don’t think so….
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I needed some comic relief today
I know just about every race draws crackpots, and some even make the ballot, but… more than fifty? And… Sarah Palin?
kalakal
@Calouste: This is spot on. Drumpf knew how to put on a show that appealed to a lot of people. He came with all the razzamatazz of celebrity and millions nationwide had seen him on ( non political) TeeVee.
DeathSentence appears on MAGAvision and has the charisma of damp lint. He comes across as a man born to hold a clipboard.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott: I hope the dead president’s twitter ghost is right, but there have been so many times I thought the wing nuts had finally gone too far for Wall St and the Chamber of Commerce, and yet….
Geminid
@CaseyL: Some key contests this fall in purple states like North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama may give us a glimpse of how the 2024 electorate may vote. I’m guessing that the Republicans will put up a Presidential candidate not too different from their Governor and Senate candidates in those swing states.
One difference between the next two cycles will be that the Republican Presidential candidate can win with less than half of the popular vote. If third party candidates do as well as they did in 2016 a Republican might win with well under 48% of the vote. So whether Republicans nominate a new asshole or recycle their old one, he will have a fighter’s chance.
I was heartened somewhat when I read a poll published March 24, by a reputable company whose name escaped me. It showed Joe Biden with a decent lead over Trump, Pence and DeSantis. So even if Biden’s approval is not great, the Republicans’ is worse.
I am also heartened by the fact that for all our griping Democrats are basically united, and that is not at all the case for the Republicans, at least not now.
UncleEbeneezer
First Desantis needs to survive a primary (do we even know if the GOP is having one to let people challenge Dear Leader?). If so Trump will likely be back on social media with Fox and the Rightwing Puke Funnel amplifying every word. Unless Desantis claims the election was stolen, he has no chance with the base. If he does then Trump really “won” in 2020 and deserves the prize. It’s a Catch-22 that doesn’t bode well for anyone but Trump.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@JoyceH:
In a just world, Mark Burnett would be subpoenaed to produce the “Apprentice” outtakes, and would be sentenced to a small jail cell with those outtakes playing on a loop 24/7 at a Trump rally decibel level.
Kathleen
@TonyG: That is so true. Every time I see pic of Rethuglican I fully expect that slimy tentacles will break out of their foreheads through their suit jackets a la Men In Black.
Kathleen
@Kay: One of my co workers is a Disney fanatic and she, her husband and 2 children are headed down there next Friday. They plan a Disney trip about every other year. She’s also a Republican (albeit a thoughtful and reluctant one) and very religious. I’ve not heard her utter a word about issues with Disney “wokeness”.
Brachiator
@Geminid:
I think it too early to speculate too deeply about 2024 elections, but I don’t think that the 3rd party vote will be significant.
Voters know it’s pretty much about Republicans vs Democrats. Democrats came out in 2020 because they wanted to stop Trump. Stopping Trump or Trumpism might still be the main point of the 2024 campaign.
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Alaska has a new election system with an August “jungle primary” followed by a November, ranked-choice runoff between the top four finishers. That system, Alaska’s small electorate, and the novelty of having that seat open for the first time in fifty years have inspired a widespread zeal for public service.
Magdi Semrau, aka Mangy Jay, commented on Palin’s bid. Semrau grew up in Alaska. She hasn’t been back since her parents moved from the state in 2013, but Semrau says that by then Alaskans were thoroughly fed up with Palin and that familiarity had bred contempt.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
You may be right re: whether he thought they’d back down, but I think he did it to show the MAGGOT base that he’s willing to destroy (or at least “put the hurt on”) any “woke” (FSM, I hate that fucking term) corporation who dares not to toe the fascist/Rethug partei line.
I’d call it “virtue signaling,” but promulgating fascist/evil memes is hardly related to virtue.
Chip Daniels
@PJ:
There are too many Van Zants. Please remove one.
P.S. I am not a crank.
SiubhanDuinne
At the farthest continental diagonal from Florida, former half-term
lunaticGovernor Sarah Palin is running for Congress to replace Don Young. Any Alaskans amongst the Jackaltariat who could comment? Does she have a hope? I gather it’s a pretty big field, but I haven’t really dug very deeply.John Revolta
@UncleEbeneezer: Correction: DeSantis FIRST has to get re-elected as FL Gov, and it’s far from certain, considering he only won by .4% the last time, and now he’s got the Mouse pissed off at him.
trollhattan
@kalakal:
Remember in 2016 how they’d start broadcasting his campaign rallies before he arrived? That’s how in the tank they were for the Trump show–in some cases genuinely in thrall and in others, so convinced he’d lose that they wanted to witness so they could then dance on his political grave.
DeSantis may be more palatable than Ted Cruz, but that’s as far as I’d go describing his questionable appeal. I doubt Americans who don’t follow politics know who he is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: ah, thanks, I’d forgotten MJ was a former Alaskan
One of the rare instances when I thought trump had a normal human reaction was at the rally where SP endorsed him. Her word-salad-shooter was set to high and the expression on trump’s face couldn’t have more clearly communicated, “Christ would somebody get the hook” if he had been holding a sign
Speaking of Alaska and their new run-off system, has St Lisa The Contemplative announced her stance on Judge Brown Jackson?
Geminid
@Brachiator: The third party vote in 2016, particularly for the Libertarians, was exceptional for recent years. And I don’t see an Anderson or Perot out there who could get a substantial vote share.
But- I have this creepy feeling about a Gabbard/Yang ticket. That seems like a joke, but I won’t be laughing if the two get up on a stage and standing next to them is Peter Thiel as their finance chairman. That crew would find it easy to hijack the Libertarian party and it’s ballot spot, or they could just start a new presidential party to get on the ballot. Either way, they would go after soft Democratic voters.
Rudi
DeSantis didn’t win a mandate, yet he acts like he did. He won by 0.4% or over 42,000 votes with 8,000,000 cast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Florida_gubernatorial_election
With a Georgia like turnout, he might lose his re-election.
Brachiator
@Geminid:
I think that 2024 will be more like 2020. In 2016 you had two candidates that some voters didn’t like for various reasons.
I don’t think about these two at all. Maybe I will start paying attention to them.
To be blunt, 2024 will hinge on perceptions of Biden’s health and fitness. And whether he keeps Harris on the ticket.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
interesting interview with Kara Swisher, who is someone I’m increasingly becoming a fan of (do I need one more podcast? ), about Disney and the DeSantis regime/campaign/s. She is not a fan of Disney CEO Bob Chapek
Sister Golden Bear
@The Thin Black Duke: it wasn’t a bad bet if DeathSentence’s part. Disney initially had a pretty mealy-mouthed reaction. They only took a harder line after employees staged internal protests and walk-outs.
Adam L Silverman
@Chip Daniels: Little Stevie is the only decent one of that name.
JoyceH
@Another Scott:
Oh, man, isn’t that a BORE? Geez, I’m old enough that I can remember when some people (my lefty older sister and her peers) used ‘politically correct’ and ‘politically incorrect’ with perfect sincerity, for a VERY short period of time, before the right picked it up, added a sneer, and chewed on the terms for literally decades. I guess ‘woke’ is going to get the same treatment. Yawn. (Heck, some of these clowns still talk about ‘hippies’ – have there been any hippies for the last half-century?!)
Anyway
@Kay:
Risgt-wingers and RW-adjacents that fomented cancel-culture never cared about speech. They cared about progressive “woke” voices getting neutralized. Mission accomplished.
Even if DeSantis doesn’t do well as a national candidate he has been a disaster for progress on “humanitarian” issues that we thought were settled (LGBT, for instance). He’s shown that he can get away with enacting extremist horrible laws in a large diverse state like Florida.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
All Disney has to do to mollify DickSuckit voters is to re-release Song of the South and do a live action version as well. They’ll be happy with a kindly Uncle Remus who knows his place.
realbtl
@Adam L Silverman: No love for Townes?
tom
@realbtl: too many Van Zandts to keep track of.
Martin
As I told my dad the other day – the only upside to our failure to address climate change is that Florida is going to bear the costs worse than any other state.
I don’t wish it on Florida, but if we’re going to go all culture war in this country, I’m not going to feel too much sympathy for those declaring war against me. And yes, I get that there are good democrats fighting against it there, including the outstanding folks here like Betty and Adam, but if democracy is a social contract from the public, then the public does bear some responsibility for the outcome. This is the argument Ukraine is making against Russia – they stood up to their authoritarian leaders and rejected them, and Russia didn’t, and Ukraine isn’t going to shed tears for the Russians that are now waging war against them for putting themselves in that spot.
Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Chapek has to go. What a fucking disaster he’s been. Not just on this issue but a ton of others.
Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Swisher has always been great, IMO.
Martin
@PJ: Who needs 50% when state legislatures can just pick the winner.
NotMax
OT.
Russia says it will suspend ISS cooperation until sanctions are lifted
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Swisher certainly pulls no punches. Interesting article.
I don’t know if I quite agree with this part:
Disney owns Marvel. They aren’t going anywhere.
Disney also currently owns the movie theater box office with Marvel films, where other studios are faltering.
Martin
@NotMax: Sorta. I mean, it’s mostly a repeat of what was said before. And I think the US response is the correct one – NASA (not the State Department) will help keep Roscosmos flying if they want. The State Department doesn’t know how to keep the door so tightly closed that only Soyuz/Progress flies, but NASA does.
This isn’t the answer Russia wants because they want to import things under the cover of Soyuz and then use them for ballistic missiles, etc.
But Russia needs to keep their foot in this because they need that door opened. Their previous threats, which they thought would work because Congress and US space strategy was so dysfunctional only served to get Congress/NASA to accept private launches, and SpaceX filled the manned flight hole faster than expected. Right now we need Cygnus/Antares to boost the ISS and we need Russian motors for that, but willing to bet we see that launched on Falcon pretty soon. Additionally, we don’t have anything that can spin dump the ISS gyros, so that would need to be worked out.
Russia started this threat trajectory assuming that they were critical to ISS operation, and we’ve steadily replaced their capacity. They’re now down to vague threats that they can shoot ISS down when it crosses over Russian airspace. The US knows how strong our hand here is.
JAFD
@tom: Don’t forget James E. Van Zandt, who was congressman from Altoona for eleven terms, and lost the Senate race to Joseph Clark in ’62. From this distance, he was a good Republican.
(I was just getting interested in politics then, my memory got jarred ….)
barbequebob
@JoyceH: been thinking about a term that is the opposite of “woke”. All I got so far is “comatose”.
Paulb
Something to keep in mind about Disney is that it’s not just about their customers; it’s also about their employees. Not the theme park employees, necessarily, but their Imagineers, their web developers, their game developers, their animation teams, their actors, directors, and other creative talent, and so on. Pretty much all of these are in high demand these days and their loss could potentially cripple multiple Disney divisions.
It was the employees who got Disney management to change their tune on this; I don’t see that changing. DeSantis just doesn’t have enough clout to take away their customers and definitely doesn’t have the clout to take away their talent.
Uncle Cosmo
@barbequebob: DEFTNU: DEad From The Neck Up.
Chris Johnson
@TonyG: I think that went ‘in Birmingham we loved the Governor… BOO, BOO, BOO. And we all did what we could do’. Sweet Home Alabama’s a complicated song in some ways but it’s definitely not kissing the ass of George Wallace. There’s some of that ‘Reagan trying to adopt Born in the USA’ vibe about it, apparently Wallace thought it was kissing his ass, but that’s normal for these rightwingers, to co-opt stuff, and Skynyrd didn’t make it that hard to co-opt their song. But it goes boo, boo, boo, on purpose.
Cthulhu
@Brachiator:
Disney could buy the whole state and it’s politicians overnight if it wanted to. Rule one in Floriduh. Don’t fuck with the House of Mouse.