How Mickey Mouse was drawn into America’s culture wars

Mickey Mouse and his Florida home, the world’s most visited theme park, have been drawn into America’s culture wars, which have heated up since Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, launched a battle against the Walt Disney company last year. 

His reason: Disney, a superpower of American popular culture, issued a letter of mild criticism of a Republican bill that limited instruction on gender and sexuality in public schools. Opponents labelled it the “don’t say gay” law. DeSantis saw the criticism as evidence of “woke” corporate thinking to which he is vocally opposed. 

“We reject this woke ideology,” DeSantis said in his inaugural speech at the beginning of his second term in office in January. “We will never surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”  

DeSantis, who is expected to formally declare his candidacy for the 2024 presidential elections within the next few months, won re-election for governor in a landslide last year, partly because of his oft-voiced scepticism over federal guidelines on vaccinations, face-masks, lockdowns and school closures during much of the Covid-19 pandemic.

That turned him into a hero for right-wing Republicans, a villain for the left, and a governor with a national profile high enough to make him a credible contender for the presidential race. Still, polls on the candidates’ standing for the Republican primary votes show that he is trailing the front-runner, former President Donald Trump. 

It is still 10 months before the first Republican primaries and 18 months to the elections – eternities in politics. So much can happen that long-term forecasts are useless apart from providing fodder for America’s vast army of analysts and talking heads. 

But it is a safe bet to predict that the term “woke” and the concept of “wokeism” as a movement will feature prominently in campaign debates. Though they mean different things to different people, they have become weapons in America’s increasingly bizarre culture wars. 

For an example of how the meaning of words change according to the user, let’s look at “woke.” In 2017, when two of the most important dictionaries of the English language first included it, their definitions were similar and unambiguous. 

The Oxford English dictionary: “ woke, adjective: Originally: well-informed, up-to-date. Now chiefly: alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice; frequently in stay woke.” America’s Merriam-Webster: “woke”: aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).” Does DeSantis mean issues of racial and social justice when he repeats his motto that “Florida is where woke goes to die”? Or is it a matter of a thin-skinned politician reacting rashly to criticism from his state’s biggest and best-known employer?

(According to Disney figures, the Magic Kingdom employs 77,000 people, making it “the biggest single-site employer in the United States”). 

Disney’s criticism of the education legislation so enraged DeSantis that he moved to take away privileges and a special tax status, granted in 1967, that allowed the vast 25,000-acre resort near Orlando to effectively function as a self-governing entity. “If Disney wants a fight, they chose the wrong guy,” DeSantis wrote in an email to supporters. 

But defanging Mickey Mouse proved easier said than done. Instead, the mouse roared. A series of complicated legal manoeuvres largely saved Disney World the Magic Kingdom from the punishment the governor intended. 

The mouse bit back. This month, the company filed a federal lawsuit against DeSantis, accusing him of orchestrating a “campaign of retribution” against Disney by signing legislation to cancel the company’s development deals in Orlando. DeSantis, the suit says, is “weaponizing the power of government to punish private business.” 

The feud is likely to drag on in the courts for a long time. 

The arguments over Disney speak volumes about the antipathy of right-wing Republicans to corporate management strategies that take social issues into account. DIE ( Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) is one. ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) is another.  

One of the most strident critiques of these strategies has come from Vivek Ramaswamy, a 37-year-old millionaire entrepreneur of Indian heritage who is running for the presidency. 

He wrote a book entitled Woke, Inc. in which he deplores “rosy promises of a better, more diverse and environmentally friendly world” by a “woke-industrial complex” that divides Americans. 

Whether De Santis’s effort to turn Americans against a long-beloved company will help or hinder his presidential ambitions is a matter of conjecture. A poll by Reuters/Ipsos in April found that majorities of both Republicans and Democrats were less likely to support a candidate who favours punishing companies for their stand on cultural issues. 

Those who have followed the Mickey Mouse feud with close attention and think it weakens prospective presidential candidate DeSantis include Florida’s most prominent resident: Donald Trump. 

On his Truth Social platform, he made no secret of his glee: “DeSantis is absolutely destroyed by Disney.” 

Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.

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