Thumbs down on 'woke': 'Disney debacle' lesson for CEOs

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://nypost.com/2022/05/07/thumbs-down-on-woke-disney-debacle-lesson-
for-ceos/

Of course the ink is barely dry on the Supreme Court’s draft decision to
overturn Roe v. Wade, and a draft is not quite a ruling, but it’s been
refreshing to finally be hearing nothing from business leaders on this
contentious cultural issue.

Maybe our corporate elite has finally woken up to the notion that it’s bad
business to piss off more than half the country with virtue-signaling on
progressive issues. Or maybe they’re ignoring the political noise and
keeping busy doing what they get paid to do — trying to run profitable
companies that provide returns for their shareholders.

Either way, silence is golden, and we can thank Florida Gov. Ron ­DeSantis
for making it happen.

DeSantis did something that would have made movie character Jimmy Malone
proud. Malone, played by Sean Connery in the 1987 flick “The
Untouchables,” is the tough, veteran cop who explained to Eliot Ness how
to beat Al Capone and his criminal gang: “They pull a knife, you pull a
gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the
morgue.”

For the record: I’m NOT advocating violence in defeating the corporate
wokesters, or anyone for that matter.

But there is something to be said about following Jimmy Malone’s logic and
taking the battle to corporate woke gangsters if they choose to become an
arm of the AOC-Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party. And that’s
exactly what DeSantis did in his battle and convincing victory over the
virtue-signaling of the Disney theme-park and entertainment corporate
empire.

According to my sources, the C-suite types weren’t just closely watching
but also learning something about a new brand of GOP politics after
DeSantis counter-punched Disney CEO Bob Chapek.

Chapek thought it was a smart idea to follow the lead of some of his far-
left employees who demanded he speak out against a Florida law they
inaccurately and libelously dubbed “Don’t Say Gay.”

Keep in mind, the law doesn’t say that all; it merely states that kids
from kindergarten through the third grade don’t need sex-ed lessons or
gender-identity preaching when they’re supposed to be learning the ABCs
and how to add.

Lefty rallying cry
The cultural left doesn’t really care about the truth when it comes to
advancing its agenda. Left-wingers and their friends in the media created
the fake meme as part of a rallying cry hoping to generate public and
corporate pressure to get the state to back down. And it worked at least
for awhile. After keeping his mouth shut (Smart!), Chapek gave in to the
woke heat (Dumb!), and publicly attacked the law.

Disney’s corporate headquarters are in Burbank, Calif. But, it’s fair to
say, Florida is its second home. It’s among Florida’s largest employers.
The Disney World theme park is a cultural landmark of the state, so much
so that the company has received corporate welfare writ large for decades
and its complex near Orlando operates as a de facto independent local
government.

No longer. DeSantis did what lawmakers should have done when all those
corporate CEOs decided to give in to the woke mobs in the streets and on
Twitter by attacking Georgia’s voting law as racist when it merely checks
for ID: He fought back.

He didn’t just criticize Disney and Chapek for political grandstanding, he
pushed through the Florida legislature a law that rescinds the company’s
corporate-welfare goodies, which includes tax breaks, access to the low-
cost municipal bond market, and other privileges.

Then came this warning from the Republican governor: “If you are in one of
these corporations, if you’re a woke CEO, you want to get involved in our
legislative business, look, it’s a free country. But understand, if you do
that, I’m fighting back against you. And I’m going to make sure that
people understand your business practices, and anything I don’t like about
what you’re doing.”

DeSantis is despised by the left and most of the media because he embodies
many of Donald Trump’s winning instincts without the former president’s
losing rough spots (meaning, no tweeting out of the Florida governor).

That’s why he remains popular in his state and should cruise to
re­election despite barely defeating his Dem opponent four years ago. The
Disney fight isn’t going to hurt his standing with voters. He’s already
considered a 2024 GOP presidential contender, and fellow GOP public
officials are likely to follow his lead when it comes to fighting back
when the business community locks arms with the left.

Fighting back
My DC sources say that if the GOP takes the House and Senate in this
year’s midterms, look for them to go on the offense against corporate
wokesters. There’s already talk in GOP circles of public hearings forcing
CEOs to explain why they think it’s in the best interests of their
shareholders to weigh in and support lefty issues, which are opposed by
many Americans.

If my sources are telling me this, I’m pretty sure the army of lobbyists
employed by Wall Street and even Big Tech are telling their CEOs the same
thing. Maybe that’s why we’ve heard so little from them about the draft
Roe v. Wade ruling.

If they’re smart, they’ll keep it that way.


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