AN NBC REPORTER WRITES IT UP JUST THE WAY DeSANTIS LIKES IT

Former Politico reporter Marc Caputo has a story to tell us about Florida governor and future presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, and he's dishing it up to DeSantis's exact specifications:

One of Florida’s biggest political players, The Walt Disney Co. is known here in the state capital for getting what it wants as it showers candidates and parties with cash.

But Disney’s biggest campaign contribution to Gov. Ron DeSantis this cycle might not be money but rather the company’s decision to denounce the law he signed that prohibits “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” in the state’s public schools.

Is this a good law? Is it a bad law? Don't worry your pretty little head about that -- it's a win for DeSantis! That's not an opinion -- this is a straight news story, so it's a fact!

For months, DeSantis has steadily increased his rhetoric denouncing “the rise of corporate wokeness,” but he didn’t have a clear target until Disney announced its opposition to the measure, which critics have called the "Don’t Say Gay" bill, on March 9. Since then, the company — Florida’s largest employer — has been a singular focus for the governor as he runs for re-election and eyes a 2024 presidential bid. As a vestige of Florida's old business-aligned GOP, Disney provided DeSantis a perfect foil to highlight the revolution in Republican politics as it de-emphasizes talk about free markets in favor of culture war attacks on “wokeness.”

Did I mention "wokeness" in this paragraph? Maybe I should say "wokeness" again!

Besides using the word "wokeness" alomst as much as DeSantis and other Republican politicians do, Caputo tells us that we should say goodbye to "Florida's old business-aligned GOP" because there's a new sheriff in town who "de-emphasizes talk about free markets." In fact, Caputo is mischaracterizing both the pre-DeSantis GOP and the current GOP. The GOP has never favored free markets -- it likes providing huge tax giveaways to big corporations. That's still true in DeSantis's Florida, as that radical-left magazine Forbes tells us:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) continued to go after Disney on Friday over its opposition to the state’s Parental Rights In Education Act (known to critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law), saying he’s “receptive” to the state legislature revoking special privileges the company’s received—but he refused to go after the corporate tax breaks Disney gets from the state government.

DeSantis was asked at a press conference Friday about corporate tax breaks Disney receives from the state, including what the Orlando Sentinel reports could be up to $570 million in tax breaks for a new office complex the company is opening, as well as corporate tax refunds that the state is set to issue to companies in May.

DeSantis said that while he’s in favor of the state taking away privileges that are unique to Disney, those tax breaks are ones “that any business would be eligible for,” and insisted there are “no special tax breaks that are Disney-specific that we would contemplate” taking away.

Democratic lawmakers in Florida have suggested DeSantis and their Republican colleagues should go after Disney’s tax breaks—and the state’s corporate tax refunds as a whole—if they’re serious about cracking down on Disney’s benefits from the state.

But there's no evidence that the Republicans who control the legislature have any plan to do so, or even to follow through on DeSantis's Disney-specific threats.

Caputo doesn't care. Caputo just wants us to know that what DeSantis is doing is very, very excellent politics. (Notice that whenever a Republican politician does something controversial and brazen it's described by the mainstream media as extremely savvy, but when Democrats embrace controversial ideas, or even widely popular ones -- backing Ukraine, making gun background checks universal -- every story is about how risky and potentially offputting what they're doing is likely to be?)

If you're wondering just how excellent DeSantis's political instincts are, let Caputo tell you, at great length:

DeSantis on Thursday parlayed Disney’s opposition to the law into a fundraising pitch, casting himself as a family-values David fighting what he said was a “radical” corporate Goliath....

He’s earned conservative accolades from Fox News appearances criticizing Disney for doing business in China yet remaining silent about the Uyghur genocide, and for sending Disney cruises to the Caribbean island of Dominica, where homosexuality is criminalized.

(DeSantis has a press secretary, but Caputo thinks he needs to retransmit all of the governor's talking points on this issue.)

"This is right in DeSantis’ wheelhouse,” said José Oliva, a DeSantis ally who was the Florida House speaker in 2019 and 2020, during the governor’s first two years in office. “Disney’s woke capitalism is exactly what DeSantis calls out.” ...

“His appeal is he fights back, he stands up regardless of where the stampede is going,” Oliva said. “Disney perhaps thought that, as a large corporation, that it was above these things. Now it realizes it’s going to be treated like everyone else.”

Does Caputo quote any opposing opinions in this news story? Yes, twelve paragraphs in:

“DeSantis’ national small-dollar donors, the QAnon extreme-right crowd is who he plays to. It’s not Floridians,” said Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, which sued the state Thursday over the law Disney denounced.

Caputo quotes a top executive at this human rights organization only to portray the group as suspect in the following paragraph:

DeSantis’ office reacted to the Equality Florida lawsuit by questioning whether Disney was underwriting the suit.

"Smith said the lawyers are working pro-bono," Caputo tells us. And then he's right back to being a fanboy:

DeSantis' Disney feud is a continuation of his fight-all-comers political style that turned him into a national GOP figure during the pandemic, when experts criticized his laissez-faire approach to Covid. The criticism and negative media coverage prompted fiery responses from DeSantis, and the Republican base loved the politics as well as the policy.

Near the end of the story, we finally get a paragraph telling us what the law is all about -- but the paragraph is built on DeSantis bullet points.

The legislation, which is titled the Parental Rights in Education bill, does not contain the words "don't say gay," though legal experts and opponents point out the bill's language is vague, leaving room for interpretation. It generally prohibits teachers from instructing kids about gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade.

It "generally" does a lot more than that, as critics have pointed out:

... a close read of the text shows it to be an overly broad piece of legislation that requires school mental-health counselors to “out” LGBTQ+ children to their parents and makes any discussion of LGBTQ+ issues or identities practically forbidden because parents could start a state investigation and sue for damages any time they feel aggrieved....

The bill’s broad language not only says “classroom instruction ... on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3,” but it also bans such instruction “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” What does that mean? No one knows, but because the bill empowers parents to sue whenever they perceive a slight, anything is fair game.

Moreover, the preamble to the bill advocates “prohibiting classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels or in a specified manner” (emphasis added). “Discussion” is much broader than “classroom instruction.” ...

The provisions governing school counseling are even worse. The bill requires school boards to “adopt procedures for notifying a student’s parent if there is a change in the student’s services or monitoring related to the student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being and the school’s ability to provide a safe and supportive learning environment for the student.” And no district could “prohibit school district personnel from notifying a parent about his or her student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being.”

The principle here is that it is a parent’s absolute right to know such things about their children, but the consequences would be that counselors would have to violate confidentiality and out kids to their parents even if it would cause them to be rejected or thrown out of their homes. This is a massive, terrifying inversion of the responsibilities of a counselor.

None of this matters to Caputo. All that matters is whether the bill is a political winner for DeSantis. DeSantis says it is. Caputo believes him -- and seems delighted. This article is a disgrace.