DO REPUBLICANS WANT LIBERALISM TO BE ILLEGAL IN THE STATES THEY CONTROL?

Here's the anecdote that begins a Washington Post story about Ron DeSantis's relationship with Disney:

Early on March 9, Robert Chapek, Walt Disney Co.’s CEO, got on the phone with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to discuss the Parental Rights in Education bill, which restricts what teachers can say about gender and sexual orientation.

... Disney was a DeSantis donor and one of the state’s biggest employers. Thanks to a $578 million tax break approved during his administration, Disney planned to move 2,000 high-paid creative jobs from California to the Sunshine State.

But DeSantis was bristling about similar plans, as he soon made clear in public and private. Californians moving to Texas will “vote the exact same way they voted that turned San Francisco into the dumpster fire that it is,” he warned at a forum in April, adding that he also didn’t want “leftists” infiltrating Florida. He echoed such concerns to Disney executives, according to a person familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations.

Then DeSantis declared his fatwa against Disney for its objections to the Parents Rights in Education ("Don't Say Gay") bill. Disney has since postponed the move of the 2,000 employees to 2026, at which time DeSantis will either be president of the United States, a defeated one-term governor, or a term-limited two-term governor in his final year in office, assuming he doesn't impose martial law and declare himself Florida's governor for life, which I suppose we can't rule out.

I reproduce this story because right-wingers like to gin up outrage whenever Democratic politicians seem to suggest that conservatives are unwelcome in their states. This past summer the New York Post ran an opinion piece about New York's governor headlined "Kathy Hochul’s Call for 5.4M Republicans to Leave New York Is Dangerous and Disgusting." In fact, Hochul never actually said that all Republicans should leave the state. What she said -- as the Post itself reported -- was this:

Gov. Kathy Hochul sparked controversy Monday night by saying political opponents like Republican gubernatorial nominee Rep. Lee Zeldin ought to ditch New York as she rallied with fellow Democrats ahead of a special election in Congressional District 19 in the Hudson Valley.

“We are fighting for democracy. We’re fighting to bring government back to the people and out of the hands of dictators,” Hochul said at a Monday evening rally in Kingston alongside Democratic congressional candidate Pat Ryan, where she called out his Republican opponent, Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, Zeldin and former President Donald Trump.

“Trump and Zeldin and Molinaro – just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong. OK? Get out of town. Because you don’t represent our values,” added Hochul....

(Republicans all over the country hit their fainting couches when Hochul's words were reported, but Democrat Pat Ryan won that special election.)

Hochul's predecessor said something similar, which was similarly misinterpreted by the New York Post.

[Andrew] Cuomo said Friday that members of the GOP with “extreme” views are creating an identity crisis for their party and represent a bigger worry than Democrats such as himself. “Their problem isn’t me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves,” the governor said on Albany’s The Capitol Pressroom radio show.

“Who are they? Right to life, pro-assault weapons, anti-gay — if that’s who they are, they have no place in the state of New York because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”

He added that moderate Republicans, such as those in the state Senate, “have a place in their state.”

It's clear to me that Cuomo was talking about candidates who, in his opinion, are to the right of New York State's moderate voters, and was trying to explain why Republicans generally do poorly in elections here. But he also was accused of saying an entire class of people was unwelcome in his state.

Even if you accept the Murdoch media's interpretation of these statements, neither Hochul nor Cuomo ever told a top corporate executive not to move jobs into his state because the employees might be of the wrong ideological persuasion. Hochul and Cuomo weren't even talking about ordinary citizens. But DeSantis clearly wants to exercise at least some control over which citizens can move to his state.

How far would he take that, if he could? We already hear other Republicans asserting that they don't want Californians moving to their states. Would Republicans make it illegal for liberals, or people presumed to be liberal, to move to their communities, if they could? Will they actually pass laws to that effect someday? I wish I were certain that I could rule that out.