Former Vice President Mike Pence fired the first shot at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.
DeSantis finally delivered his response.
And you’ll be speechless when you see what Ron DeSantis just did to Mike Pence.
Conservatives could not believe that the fight Pence wanted to pick with DeSantis was over DeSantis stripping Disney of its special governing privileges after the woke corporation tried to meddle in Florida politics.
Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek tried to lobby to kill a broadly popular bill banning teachers from indoctrinating students in grades K-3 into transgenderism with sexually inappropriate lesson plans.
In an interview on CNBC Pence claimed pushing back against woke corporations violated his limited-government principles.
“Disney stepped into the fray, they lost. But the idea of going after the taxing authority, you know, that was beyond the scope of what I, as a conservative, limited-government Republican would be prepared to do,” Pence explained.
This position by Pence is one broadly held in the Jeb Bush/Paul Ryan/Mitt Romney wing of the party that believes surrendering to the left’s capture of every major American cultural institution is the highest form of principle.
Ron DeSantis wasted no time in firing back at the weak Republican establishment as embodied by Pence.
DeSantis pointed out there was nothing “free market” about allowing Disney to operate as its own government.
“Is it free market economics to have a corporation run its own government and be exempt from laws and be treated better than all its competitors? Of course not,” DeSantis told Fox News. “That’s corporate welfare and so this was something that had really embedded in Florida’s DNA because Disney was so powerful for many decades. Nobody even questioned this and basically Disney ran the show in this state for a long time until I became governor and we said ‘you know, we’re gonna side with the people of Florida, we’re not gonna kowtow to a woke company based in Burbank, California.’”
“But make no mistake about it, we have a more competitive market today than we did when they were operating their own government and enjoying those special privileges,” DeSantis added.
DeSantis followed up with a Wall Street Journal op-ed arguing that if Disney — and other woke corporations — want to act like Democrat Party super PACs and bully red states into bowing to the left’s radical cultural agenda then companies should expect DeSantis to treat them like political actors.
In closing, DeSantis took another dig at establishment Republicans like Pence by pointing out that old-guard Republicans like Pence don’t have the mettle for this fight.
DeSantis slammed D.C. Republicans for granting every special favor and bailout for companies even though they opposed the right on social issues.
And DeSantis argued that catering to the every whim of woke corporations did not serve the broader interests of the American people and the broader economy.
“In this environment, old-guard corporate Republicanism isn’t up to the task at hand. For decades, GOP elected officials have campaigned on free-market principles but governed as corporatists—supporting subsidies, tax breaks and legislative carve-outs to confer special benefits on entrenched corporate interests. But policies that benefit corporate America don’t necessarily serve the interests of America’s people and economy,” DeSantis wrote.
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