The conflict in Florida between the Walt Disney Company and Governor DeSantis appears to have ended. After two years of rhetorical and legal skirmishing, a settlement agreement between Disney and DeSantis’s allies was struck in late March 2024 to end the litigation.1
The dispute started with DeSantis’s “Parental Rights in Education” bill, HB 1557, signed into law in March 2022.2 The bill was highly controversial for prohibiting certain “classroom instruction” on “sexual orientation” in tax-funded schools and became widely known by critics as the “don’t say gay” bill (despite never using the word “gay” and, thus, being just as accurately describable as a “don’t say straight” bill).3
According to the New York Times, the following sentence led critics to produce the “don’t say gay” nickname: “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”4 Widespread unsubstantiated claims that the bill prohibited such things as family photos on teachers’ desks and casual discussions of teachers’ romantic partnerships seems to have contributed to the broader adoption of the “don’t say gay” label.5
When the Walt Disney Company began publicly criticizing the bill as harmful to LGBTQ+ people, DeSantis sought retaliation. Since 1967, when it made a special deal with Florida’s state legislature, Disney had enjoyed relative self-governance in a special tax district called the Reedy Creek Improvement. This was DeSantis’s attack vector. Under the guise of giving corporations equal treatment, he sought to dissolve the special district so that a floodgate of taxes and regulations would be opened on Disney.
As interesting as are the questions of the legitimacy of DeSantis’s bill and of Disney’s response to it, these are not our focus here. These details are merely the background of the conflict that was about to erupt, one that would reveal something important about today’s conservative thought leaders.
Many of America’s most popular conservatives have defended DeSantis’s crackdown on Disney and supported his opposition to the company’s “woke” messaging. In doing so, they have demonstrated their willingness to invoke the leftist doctrine of egalitarianism.
The Self-Governance of Disney
The Walt Disney Company’s 1967 deal with Florida’s state legislature created a special district of about twenty-five thousand acres, all of which was reportedly swamp land at the time.6 It was in an area of Orange and Osceola counties so remote and secluded that the nearest power and water lines were ten to fifteen miles away. The deal empowered Disney to govern the district—legally called The Reedy Creek Improvement District—with substantial autonomy.
“Did you know Walt Disney World is self-governed?” asks the Miami Herald.7 According to the Orlando Sentinel, “Reedy Creek was granted most of the powers typically held by cities and counties in Florida, including the ability to write building codes, sell tax-free bonds, produce electricity, condemn property and kill mosquitoes.”8 The Economist reports that this arrangement “gave Disney near-total control over the roads, public utilities, zoning and building codes, and more on the land on and around which Disney World was built” and even “rights to operate an airport, police services and a nuclear power plant.”9
Although the majority of Reedy Creek is still privately owned by Disney, a substantial number of people have moved there, typically choosing to live within Disney’s realm for its luxuries, conveniences, or employment opportunities.10
“Who lives in Reedy Creek?” asks a Miami Herald article.11 “Disney employees—called ‘cast members’—and their families” do. But Disney employees aren’t the only Reedy Creek residents. Disney has built whole communities, such as the town of Celebration, home to many non-Disney employees. “Disney broke ground on Celebration in 1994, opting to first build a commercial center of vibrantly painted restaurants and shops on the edge of a small lake,” reports the Washington Post. “It then began selling single-family homes, townhouses and condominiums marketed to people who couldn’t get enough of the Magic Kingdom.”12
Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista are two smaller cities within Disney’s semiautonomous political zone. “The reality is, they’re just private cities,” said Chad Emerson, lawyer and author of the book Project Future: The Inside Story Behind the Creation of Disney World. Judging by reports from the Sentinel about resident satisfaction under Disney’s governance, the arrangement has worked quite well.13
House Bill 1557
The dispute with DeSantis started in February 2022, when Disney CEO Robert Iger tweeted about the Parental Rights in Education bill. “I’m with the President on this! If passed, this bill will put vulnerable, young LGBTQ people in jeopardy,” he wrote.14
I'm with the President on this! If passed, this bill will put vulnerable, young LGBTQ people in jeopardy. https://t.co/fJZBzre4yM
— Robert Iger (@RobertIger) February 25, 2022
At Disney’s annual shareholder meeting the day after HB 1557 was passed, Bob Chapek (who briefly took over for Iger as Disney CEO in 2021–2022) criticized the bill as a danger to “gay, lesbian, nonbinary, and transgender kids and families.” In response, DeSantis publicly criticized Disney as a “woke corporation.”15
That’s when the Walt Disney Company itself decided to take an official stance on the matter. “Florida’s HB 1557, also known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, should never have passed and should never have been signed into law,” a Disney spokesperson proclaimed in an official statement:
Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that. We are dedicated to standing up for the rights and safety of LGBTQ+ members of the Disney family, as well as the LGBTQ+ community in Florida and across the country.16
Assault on Reedy Creek
Perhaps Disney had underestimated DeSantis’s appetite for all-out political warfare. Spurred by a call from DeSantis a few weeks later, the Florida legislature, on a party-line vote, passed a bill intended to dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District. The new law did not immediately repeal Disney’s special legal status, but the law’s measures were set to take effect in June 2023, once Disney had been given time to restructure and accommodate the regulations and taxes to which it would be newly subjected.17
However, Florida citizens revolted as they began to realize the implications of essentially deprivatizing this substantially autonomous district. As it turns out, deprivatizing the district’s governance “could have left taxpayers on the hook for Disney’s more than $1 billion in bond debt,” according to the Washington Post.18 “Taxpayers from counties that surround Disney World filed a complaint in federal court against Governor DeSantis about the issue, stating that the law to dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District was made in haste,” reported the Disney Food Blog. “These taxpayers shared concerns that it would leave counties with a huge amount of debt and that it violated Disney’s First Amendment rights as it was retaliatory against the company’s statement against the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill.”19
So, DeSantis pivoted. He called a special session of the Florida legislature to consider a new bill replacing Reedy Creek’s board with members appointed by the governor and Florida’s state senate. The idea was to leave the district’s autonomy intact but take it over by replacing its Disney-friendly board members with DeSantis-friendly ones.20 Signed into law later that month, the bill renamed the Reedy Creek Improvement District the “Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.”
“Some lawmakers wonder what will happen to Magic Kingdom, Epcot and other Disney properties now that the state has control over roads and other projects,” the Washington Post reported in February 2023.21 But Disney made a creative move against DeSantis that the Washington Post called “a bureaucratic coup.”22
Right before being replaced by DeSantis’s new appointees, the Disney-controlled board secretly implemented a new policy that gave Disney’s corporate leadership the right to veto almost any consequential decision made by the oversight board, whether its members were old or new. The DeSantis-appointed board members didn’t find out until after the new policy was implemented that they had been hamstrung. As DeSantis-appointed board member Ron Peri explained, “This board loses, for practical purposes, the majority of its ability to do anything beyond maintain the roads and maintain basic infrastructure.”23
A barrage of attacks from DeSantis followed, including calls for a state investigation, legislation subjecting Disney to new safety inspections, and even threats of raising taxes, adding tolls, and building a prison or competing theme park nearby. The assault crescendoed when the new DeSantis-installed board declared the bureaucratic coup agreement null and void.24
Disney responded by filing a lawsuit in federal court, accusing DeSantis of a “targeted campaign of government retaliation,” and saying, “There is no room for disagreement about what happened here: Disney expressed its opinion on state legislation and was then punished by the State for doing so.”[25]
DeSantis’s board filed a countersuit with the stated goal to “restore the people’s sovereignty,” apparently in reference to “the people” having “lost sovereignty” over an uncultivated swamp in 1967. DeSantis also signed a bill into law giving his board the authority to void previously approved agreements and prohibit compliance with the previous board’s “bureaucratic coup” agreement.26
A federal judge dismissed Disney’s suit against DeSantis in February 2024, and Disney appealed the decision.27 “This is an important case with serious implications for the rule of law, and it will not end here,” Disney’s statement said. “If left unchallenged, this would set a dangerous precedent and give license to states to weaponize their official powers to punish the expression of political viewpoints they disagree with.”28
Despite this, Disney ultimately caved in late March 2024 and admitted that its bureaucratic coup agreement to transfer control from DeSantis’s board to Disney was null and void.29 A settlement agreement was struck to end the litigation between the two factions, and DeSantis declared victory.30
Since they came to power, the DeSantis loyalists on the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District’s board have been struggling with internal turmoil and setbacks, such as resignations of important personnel, blowback from employees whose benefits the board has reduced, and even their own ignorance of how to administer bill payments. “I think you have a bunch of novices trying to run a really complex operation,” Project Future author Chad Emerson observed about the state-appointed oversight board and its impact on Disney’s business operations. “Disney had 50 years or so of doing this and had figured out how to make it run and how to make the guest experience great. I don’t think these folks care much about the guest experience.”31
The Egalitarian Ethic
The nationally prominent dispute between DeSantis and Disney has put conservatives in a strange spot. Would they defend DeSantis’s every move against woke ideology, even at the cost of (any plausible pretense of) defending free markets and free speech? As it turns out, many of the most influential conservatives have tried to have their freedom and eat it, too.
They’ve done this by invoking one of the left’s central tenets: egalitarianism.
Merriam-Webster defines egalitarianism as “a social philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among people.”32
The doctrine is fundamentally destructive to human flourishing and individual rights. Because it is easier to destroy than to build, egalitarian outcomes are always more achievable by tearing one thing down than by building another thing up. For example, it would take a miracle to make me as good a basketball player as Stephen Curry, but to make him as poor a basketball player as me, a couple gunshots to his kneecaps would suffice.
To see what kind of morally deranged results egalitarianism necessarily leads to, imagine that you and a stranger are both walking beside a cliff when a rock comes loose from above and injures one of you. In this scenario, if another rock also came loose and equally injured the other, would this make the situation better or worse? A consistent and pure egalitarian would have to say it made the situation better. After all, how is it fair for one of you to suffer more than the other?
By contrast, a philosophy of maximizing the freedom and flourishing of individuals would hold that one person getting injured by a rock is bad, but two people getting injured is even worse.
Take another example: If you’re walking down the street near two other people and arbitrarily punch one in the face, should you also punch the other in the face to make it fair? Again, whereas a morally sane person would say “No,” egalitarianism says, “Yes, for equality’s sake.”
One real-life example of egalitarian thinking leading to a conclusion like this was the capital gains tax hike that Barack Obama advocated. In a televised exchange about the proposal, broadcaster Charles Gibson argued that the results of previous changes in capital gains taxes, such as those during the preceding Clinton and Bush administrations, suggested that Obama’s rate hike would likely decrease rather than increase overall tax revenues. (See the Laffer Curve to understand one reason this might be the case.)33 “And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down,” Gibson explained. “So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?”
Obama did not challenge the premise that raising the rate would likely decrease tax revenue, but answered, “Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.”34 In other words, better that everyone become poorer—including the government and one hundred million stockholders—provided that the wealthy become poorer by the largest amount. Dragging them down brings us all closer to being financially equal, the argument goes.
It’s an inescapable fact (and a good thing) that people are different.35 They have different interests and abilities, different levels of intelligence and tenacity, and different values. And their different choices and characteristics will always yield different results. The egalitarian aim is only remotely achievable, therefore, if everyone is either killed or—what amounts to nearly the same thing—forced into a dystopian, unsustainable state of total conformity. That is part of why the worst atrocities in history—such as the Soviet Union’s Holodomor and Maoist China’s Great Famine—have so often been committed by communist regimes, which strive in essence to make everyone equal.36
When Conservatives Become Egalitarian Leftists
Disney’s 1967 deal awarded the company freedoms that other corporations in Florida, including Universal Studios and SeaWorld, have never had. If Florida’s government is going to keep other companies shackled to their burdens of taxation and regulation, should Disney be left relatively free?
Not according to Daily Wire founding editor in chief Ben Shapiro, a self-proclaimed libertarian “when it comes to the role of government” and self-identified devotee of Austrian economics, who has, nonetheless, consistently been in favor of DeSantis’s moves against Disney.37 He discusses this in his podcast episodes “The Most Vomit-Inducing Event of the Year,” “The Woke Disney Empire Strikes Back,” and most recently, “The Debt Ceiling Bill Explained,” in which he claims, “When DeSantis goes after Disney and removes their special tax benefits, that, in fact, is not a betrayal of conservatism. The special tax benefits shouldn’t be given to corporations anyway—that is insider cronyism.”38
Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Christopher Rufo, one of the most influential crusaders on behalf of DeSantis against Disney, makes similar claims:
Why does Disney have special tax status that no other corporation in the state of Florida has? Why did they have the ability . . . to create a nuclear reactor on the Disneyland campus in Orlando[?] And so, in a sense, what Ron DeSantis did is said, “Hey, the state of Florida had negotiated in previous years a sweetheart deal, a kind of crony-capitalist deal, with the Walt Disney company because there was a general and mutual interest that this would benefit the people of the state and the society as a whole. [Because you, Disney, are] participating in the political process [and] seeking to overturn the will of the people in the state of Florida, we’re simply revoking your special status and putting you on an equal free-market and fair competitive playing field as your other competitors.39
Tucker Carlson mocked and ridiculed the idea that Disney was entitled to its special tax district, claiming:
This is oligarchy! Corporate CEOs deciding what the laws should be? . . . You are not treated like Disney is treated in Florida. You have never been treated that well. So, after the special session, no more will Disney World operate as its own independent country within the state of Florida. . . . And now, going forward, Disney is going to have to pay its taxes. Oh wow, just like everybody else.40
Republican politicians in Florida, including the DeSantis administration, have invoked egalitarian arguments just as explicitly.
“They were self-governing, they had extraordinary powers, they could build nuclear power plants, they didn’t have to go through permitting processes, obviously a lot of tax benefits, and so that’s just inappropriate,” DeSantis said about Disney in an interview with Tucker Carlson.41 “They’re going to have to abide by the same laws as everybody else, they’re going to finally pay their fair share of taxes, and pay all the debts that they’ve racked up over these decades,” he said in another Carlson interview.42
“Disney should accept that it must live under the same rules as everyone else,” DeSantis spokesman Jeremy Redfern said in a statement to the Washington Post.43 The DeSantis-appointed oversight board itself called Disney’s special tax status “the most egregious exhibition of corporate cronyism in modern American history.”44
“It’s anti-free-market,” Florida’s House Representative Spencer Roach claimed about the relative autonomy granted to Disney by the 1967 Reedy Creek arrangement. “You have all these other theme parks in Florida, you have Universal Studios, SeaWorld, Legoland, Busch Gardens, and here, the district that I represent, you have a theme park—it’s the largest single-site employer in my district—it’s called the Shell Factory. They’d love to have their own government there, but they don’t have that,” said the politician who Florida’s Voice has called “a pioneer of dismantling Disney’s self-governing powers.” “Why should Disney get this special privilege and no one else should have that?”45
WATCH: FL State Rep. Spencer Roach (@SpencerRoachFL), a pioneer of dismantling Disney's self-governing powers, says Disney's special privileges violate the free market pic.twitter.com/pluKu4hF4o
— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) April 19, 2022
Although it is understandable that Disney’s competitors feel unfairly treated, all these arguments for taxing and regulating Disney based on fairness and equal treatment depend on the exact same egalitarian “logic” of punching an innocent person in the face to make it fair that someone else got punched in the face. It is the logic Obama was using when he argued that the wealthy should be taxed more for purposes of fairness rather than for the accrual of tax revenue.
When Obama expressed that preference for economic equality over wealth maximization and the property rights of individuals, he was widely criticized for it by conservative-leaning institutions, such as in the Wall Street Journal opinion piece “For Obama, Taxes Are About Fairness” and the New York Post article “Obama’s Odd Sense of Fairness.”46 But today’s conservatives embrace egalitarian tactics to punish speech they oppose.
Appeals to the “free market” made by the likes of Shapiro, Rufo, and Roach in defense of DeSantis’s calls to “equalize” the playing field invert the very meaning of the term “free market.” To see this clearly, imagine a country that has nationalized half its industries while leaving the other half to the free market. In such a country, would nationalizing the rest of the industries to “equalize” the application of government force make the country more free and thus more capitalistic? Or would turning a mixed economy into a fully state-run economy eliminate all traces of the free market?
There is no free-market defense of Ron DeSantis’s assault on Disney. The idea that he and other conservatives are crusading in defense of freedom and capitalism is a fairy tale on the order of a Disney classic.
The charge of “cronyism” would be justified if Disney’s 1967 deal had entailed violating the rights of others—but it didn’t. Instead, it largely secured Disney’s freedom to develop previously uncultivated land in accord with the judgment of its new owners, without being hampered by onerous government regulations.
A true free-market argument regarding the differential taxation and regulation of Florida’s theme parks would call not for imposing the same government rapaciousness on Disney that other corporations are unjustly subjected to but for ending violations of the property rights of Disney’s competitors. Rather than call for punching more corporations in the face for the sake of equality, call for punching fewer corporations in the face—and for ending the face-punching altogether. That is what a genuine advocate of a free market would do.
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1. “Disney and DeSantis Allies End Legal Dispute over Control of Theme Park,” BBC, March 27, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68675795.
2. Jaclyn Diaz, “Florida’s Governor Signs Controversial Law Opponents Dubbed ‘Don’t Say Gay,’” NPR, March 28, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/03/28/1089221657/dont-say-gay-florida-desantis; “CS/CS/HB 1557: Parental Rights in Education,” Florida Senate, July 1, 2022, https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/?Tab=BillHistory.
3. Valerie Strauss, “Florida Law Limiting LGBTQ Discussions Takes Effect—and Rocks Schools,” Washington Post, July 1, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/01/dont-say-gay-florida-law/.
4. Amelia Nierenberg, “What Does ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Actually Say?,” New York Times, March 23, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/us/what-does-dont-say-gay-actually-say.html.
5. Strauss, “Florida Law Limiting LGBTQ Discussions Takes Effect.”
6. Jason Garcia, “Disney’s Reedy Creek Government Has Rare Board Vacancy, But Don’t Bother Running,” Orlando Sentinel, August 6, 2021, https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2011/05/09/disneys-reedy-creek-government-has-rare-board-vacancy-but-dont-bother-running/.
7. Michelle Marchante and Howard Cohen, “Florida’s Disney World Has Its Own Government? How Reedy Creek Works, and What’s Next,” Miami Herald, April 21, 2022, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article260547127.html.
8. Garcia, “Disney’s Reedy Creek Government Has Rare Board Vacancy.”
9. “What Is the Special District at the Heart of Disney’s Feud with Ron DeSantis?,” The Economist, May 1, 2023, https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2023/05/01/what-is-the-special-district-at-the-heart-of-disneys-feud-with-ron-desantis.
10. Alison Durkee, “DeSantis Now Controls Disney World’s Special District—Here’s What That Means,” Forbes, February 28, 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/02/27/desantis-now-controls-disney-worlds-special-district-heres-what-that-means/?sh=786d79fc3e37; Sandra Pedicini, “Walt Disney World’s City Residents Help Keep Resort Running,” Orlando Sentinel, April 24, 2019, https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2015/05/23/walt-disney-worlds-city-residents-help-keep-resort-running/.
11. Marchante and Cohen, “Florida’s Disney World Has Its Own Government?”
12. Tim Craig, “DeSantis Stirs Up Opposition in Florida Town Built by Disney,” Washington Post, April 29, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/04/29/desantis-disney-lawsuit-celebration-florida/.
13. Pedicini, “Walt Disney World’s City Residents Help Keep Resort Running.”
14. Robert Iger (@RobertIger), “I’m with the President on This! If Passed, This Bill Will Put Vulnerable, Young LGBTQ People in Jeopardy,” Twitter, February 24, 2022, https://twitter.com/RobertIger/status/1497064238145171458.
15. Aaron Gregg, “A Timeline of the DeSantis-Disney Feud,” Washington Post, September 8, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/30/disney-desantis-feud-timeline/.
16. “Statement from the Walt Disney Company on Signing of Florida Legislation,” Walt Disney Company, March 28, 2022, https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/statement-from-the-walt-disney-company-on-signing-of-florida-legislation/.
17. Lori Rozsa, Tim Craig, and Hannah Sampson, “Florida Legislature Passes Bill Repealing Disney Special Tax Status,” Washington Post, April 21, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/04/21/florida-legislature-passes-bill-repealing-disneys-special-tax-status/.
18. Lori Rozsa, “Florida Lawmakers Greenlight DeSantis Takeover of Disney’s Special Tax District,” Washington Post, February 10, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/02/10/florida-desantis-disney-takeover-migrants/.
19. Robin Burks, “UPDATE: What We Know about Disney World’s Reedy Creek Dissolution,” Disney Food Blog, July 17, 2022, https://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2022/07/17/everything-we-know-about-disney-worlds-reedy-creek-dissolution/.
20. Rozsa, “Florida Lawmakers Greenlight DeSantis Takeover of Disney’s Special Tax District”; Gregg, “A Timeline of the DeSantis-Disney Feud.”
21. Rozsa, “Florida Lawmakers Greenlight DeSantis Takeover of Disney’s Special Tax District.”
22. Aaron Gregg, Lori Rozsa and Bryan Pietsch, “Disney Quietly Dodged DeSantis’s Oversight Board, Appointees Realize,” Washington Post, March 30, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/03/30/desantis-disney-world-board-loophole/.
23. Sarah Whitten, “Disney Blocks Ron DeSantis’ Florida Power Play with a Royal Family Clause,” CNBC, March 30, 2023, https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/30/disney-ron-desantis-royal-lives-clause.html.
24. Gregg, “A Timeline of the DeSantis-Disney feud.”
25. Todd C. Frankel and Lori Rozsa, “DeSantis Might Have Met His Match in Disney’s Iger as Both Sides Dig In,” Washington Post, May 15, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/15/desantis-disney-iger-power/; Aaron Gregg and Lori Rozsa, “Disney Sues Gov. Ron DeSantis, Alleging Political Retaliation,” Washington Post, April 26, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/26/desantis-disney-lawsuit/.
26. Lori Rozsa, “DeSantis’s Board Countersues Disney, Accusing Company of ‘Backroom Deal,’” Washington Post, May 1, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/01/disney-lawsuit-desantis/.
27. Rob Wile, “Disney Files Appeal after Federal Judge Dismissed Its Lawsuit against DeSantis,” CNBC, January 31, 2024, https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/disney-lawsuit-against-desantis-dismissed-why-explainer-rcna136622.
28. Gary Fineout, “Federal Judge Throws Out Disney’s Lawsuit against DeSantis,” Politico, January 31, 2024, https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/31/federal-judge-throws-out-disneys-lawsuit-against-desantis-00138852.
29. “Disney and DeSantis Allies End Legal Dispute over Control of Theme Park.”
30. Kimberly Leonard, “The Disney-DeSantis Détente Is Here,” Politico, March 27, 2024, https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/27/disney-world-desantis-fight-00149320.
31. Lori Rozsa, “DeSantis’s Controversial Disney Board Tries to Move Past Its Bumpy Start,” Washington Post, September 28, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/09/28/disney-florida-desantis-feud-lawsuits/.
32. “Egalitarianism,” Merriam-Webster, accessed April 17, 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/egalitarianism.
33. Adam Hayes, “Laffer Curve: History and Critique,” Investopedia, February 16, 2023, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/laffercurve.asp#.
34. Gerald Prante, “Obama and Gibson Capital Gains Tax Exchange,” Tax Foundation, April 17, 2008, https://taxfoundation.org/blog/obama-and-gibson-capital-gains-tax-exchange/.
35. Lauren F. Landsburg, “Comparative Advantage,” Econlib, accessed April 17, 2024, https://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/Details/comparativeadvantage.html.
36. Anne Applebaum, “Holodomor,” Britannica, March 29, 2024, https://www.britannica.com/event/Holodomor; Mao Yushi, “Lessons from China’s Great Famine,” Cato Journal 34, no. 3 (Fall 2014): 483–90, chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2014/9/cj34n3-2.pdf.
37. Ben Shapiro, “Ben Shapiro Answers Popular Internet Questions about Him!,” YouTube, April 3, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRrvoOSJZ-U&ab_channel=BenShapiro; Ben Shapiro, “Ben Shapiro LIVE Q&A,” YouTube, November 29, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzXfg1sMiA0&t=1585s&ab_channel=BenShapiro.
38. Ben Shapiro, “Ep. 171—The Most Vomit-Inducing Event of the Year,” Ben Shapiro Show (Daily Wire, May 1, 2023), https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1717-the-most-vomit-inducing-event-of-the-year; Ben Shapiro, “Ep. 1731—The Woke Disney Empire Strikes Back,” Ben Shapiro Show (Daily Wire, May 19, 2023), https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1731-the-woke-disney-empire-strikes-back; Ben Shapiro, “Ep. 1735—The Debt Ceiling Bill Explained,” Ben Shapiro Show (Daily Wire, May 30, 2023), https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1735-the-debt-ceiling-bill-explained8.
39. Trip Gabriel, “He Fuels the Right’s Cultural Fires (and Spreads Them to Florida),” Washington Post, April 24, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/24/us/politics/christopher-rufo-crt-lgbtq-florida.html; Ben Shapiro, “Ep. 141—Chris Rufo,” Sunday Special (Daily Wire, September 2, 2023), https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-141-chris-rufo.
40. Fox News, “Tucker: This Will Cost the Disney Corporation a Ton of Money,” YouTube, April 22, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr1JdUXLWUo&ab_channel=FoxNews.
41. Fox News, “DeSantis Responds to Critics after Signing Bill Ending Disney Autonomy,” YouTube, April 22, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-ZgrIt2KUs&ab_channel=FoxNews.
42. Fox News, “Ron DeSantis: Florida Has Become the Focus Point of Freedom,” YouTube, February 27, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RGFjEYVPJY&ab_channel=FoxNews.
43. Frankel and Rozsa, “DeSantis Might Have Met His Match in Disney’s Iger as Both Sides Dig In.”
44. Josh Christenson, “DeSantis-Picked Board Slams Disney’s Tax Perks: ‘Corporate Cronyism,’” New York Post, December 4, 2023, https://nypost.com/2023/12/04/news/desantis-board-slams-disneys-tax-perks-corporate-cronyism/.
45. Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews), “WATCH: FL State Rep. Spencer Roach (@SpencerRoachFL), a Pioneer of Dismantling Disney’s Self-Governing Powers, Says Disney’s Special Privileges Violate the Free Market,” Twitter, April 19, 2022, https://twitter.com/RobertIger/status/1497064238145171458.
46. William McGurn, “For Obama, Taxes Are About Fairness,” Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2008, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121910117767951201; Richard W. Rahn, “Obama’s Odd Sense of Fairness,” Cato Institute, January 30, 2012, https://www.cato.org/commentary/obamas-odd-sense-fairness.
