"DeSantis’s Miscalculation: Disney Is Playing the Long Game"

Silence in the face of political criticism is not a sustainable strategy for businesses — and pushing back can change the playing field. That’s the emerging lesson from Disney’s protracted fight with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

In late April, Disney filed suit against DeSantis and other Florida officials in federal court, charging them with undertaking a “targeted campaign of government retaliation.”

Now DeSantis is starting to lose his footing in his protracted effort to punish Disney for speaking out against Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” education bill.

“Some Republicans privately said Mr. DeSantis’s approach is increasingly looking like a personal vendetta and heavy-handed government intervention into the affairs of one of the state’s largest employers. Publicly, cracks are emerging,” reported the Wall Street Journal.

Leadership Now Project CEO Daniella Ballou-Aares hailed the increasingly vocal pushback from business leaders.

“I think there’s some sense that businesses are getting a little bit more willing to push back than they were for maybe the last year,” she told The Hill.  “They’re seeing that if you’re silent when you get pushback from political leaders, they’ll keep at it.”

“Republican attacks on ‘woke’ American corporations are exposing deep divides within the GOP, with some Republicans worried the party is straying from its roots by going after the internal politics of big businesses,” the publication reported.

Read the article “DeSantis’s Miscalculation: ‘Disney Is Playing the Long Game.”