Florida’s “Authoritarian Socialist” Governor
Plus, Why isn’t the Jared payoff a bigger scandal?
Need any more evidence that our politics is upside down?
Check out the exchange between Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, and Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis on the whole free market, private sector, small government thing.
“Florida’s authoritarian socialist attacks on the private sector are driving businesses away,” tweeted Colorado’s Polis. “In CO, we don’t meddle in affairs of companies like [Disney] or [Twitter].”
And he extended an invitation to the besieged businesses:
“Hey {Disney], we’re ready for Mountain Disneyland and [Twitter] we’re ready for Twitter HQ2, whoever your owners are.”
Polis was reacting to DeSantis’s remarkable (although now more or less routine) threats to retaliate against a private employer. DeSantis has targeted Disney for legislative punishment because of its position on the state’s new gender education law
On Tuesday morning, Florida State Representative Andrew Learned tweeted, “BREAKING: Governor DeSantis is seeking to turn today’s Special Legislative Session into a full-scale attack on Walt Disney World and Mickey Mouse. This isn’t a joke, this is 2022 and the modern Republican Party.”
Polis responded:
Now Twitter is also in DeSantis’s crosshairs.
As you undoubtedly know, billionaire Elon Musk has launched a hostile takeover bid for the social media firm. Twitter, like many American corporations who want to protect themselves from unwanted suitors, has approved a so-called “poison-pill” plan that would make Musk’s takeover much more difficult. (Hyper-short version: the company floods the market with new shares which would dilute Musk’s share, and give the board more say in the company’s future.)
DeSantis’s reaction provides a glimpse into his hall-of-mirrors thinking about free enterprise. In his remarks, he goes out of his way to blur the lines between a private business and government. He suggests that if Twitter is trying protect itself “for reasons of power and politics, and basically to serve as a suppression arm of the government, well then you’re in a situation where, you know, you need some accountability there,” said DeSantis. “First of all, that’s not free market capitalism, when you have that, OK?” (Spoiler alert: yes it is.)
“That’s a ruling junta that’s using their policies to try to marginalize people that disagree with them,” he said.
In other words, Twitter’s shareholders might view him as a liberator.
Presumably they teach these things at Harvard Law School, DeSantis’s alma mater. But the law is really not the thing for DeSantis, nor is the principle of free markets or capitalism. His concern about the company’s breach of “fiduciary duty,” is touching, but there are courts, and the SEC, and usually, these sorts of things are not resolved by politicians on the make.
Until about five minutes ago, Republicans understood — and pretended to care about — the line between the free market and state coercion. “Conservative” politicians routinely railed against proposals to have the government “pick winners and losers.” But that was before our political world inverted itself.
Since 2019, the share of Republicans who say large corporations have a positive impact on the way things are going in the U.S. has declined 24 percentage points, from 54% to 30%. Democrats have become slightly more positive toward corporations since then; positive views have risen from 23% to 28%. As a result, while there were wide partisan differences in these evaluations two years ago, there is not a significant gap today.
To be sure: there has always been corporate welfare, and with it the implicit threat that the Leviathan State might crush or cripple businesses who have lost the Favor of Heaven. But with the exception of Richard Nixon on a bad day, the mailed fist was usually kept discretely tucked away.
Now the fear or favor is out in the open. It’s not simply a bug, it’s the whole f*cking agenda.
DeSantis sees the latest controversy as another opportunity to inject himself — and the power of the state of Florida — into the culture wars, even if that means injecting the government directly into a private transaction; even if that includes overt threats to punish private businesses for defying the agenda of the country’s richest man.
DeSantis made it clear that he is firmly allying himself with Musk, in part because they share the same enemies. “You notice the people that are the most hostile to Musk are people from these legacy media outlets like Washington Post and CNN and all these places,” said DeSantis. “Nobody trusts these people anymore, I tell you they lie every single day.”
Essentially what DeSantis is saying is: give my gazillionaire buddy what he wants or I will use my power as governor to come after you. What the cronyism lacks in subtlety it more than makes up for in its brazen willingness to put government power behind the ambitions of a man of immense riches. (Siri: Please define “oligarch.”)
Which brings us to Polis’s tweet, which targeted Florida’s “authoritarian socialist attacks on the private sector.”
Do other Democrats see what’s he’s doing there?
Why the Hell Isn’t Jared Kushner’s $2 Billion Saudi Payment a Big Scandal?
David Corn asks a good question.
It's damn hard to not see the $2 billion investment as either a payoff for past services rendered or a preemptive bribe should Trump manage to regain the White House. And it could be both.
It’s a wonder that the disclosure of this deal hasn’t created more of a fuss and prompted congressional investigations. (Imagine what Republicans and Fox News would be doing if Hunter Biden received $2 billion from a Ukrainian government leader who was responsible for the gruesome murder of an American resident.)
A 10-figure payment to a relative of a former president who is essentially the current (though undeclared) GOP frontrunner in the 2024 contest and possibly the next inhabitant of the White House is a major scandal.
Or it should be…
Whatever the past or future quid pro quos, if any, this deal stinks and demands congressional scrutiny. Allowing foreign authoritarians to shower billions of dollars upon family members of past, present, or future presidents is ethically wrong but carries a greater threat. As Ali Al-Ahmed, the director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, wrote in the Washington Post, “The prospect of a dictator using his deep pockets to wield influence at the highest levels of the U.S. political system should be cause for serious concern and targeted action. Not all attacks on American democracy will take the shape of violent insurrections—the corruption of the Saudi-Kushner deal is an attack on democracy, too.”
Bonus:
Quick Hits
1. Tucker Carlson and the Crisis of Masculinity
America needs more—and better—male role models, writes Mona Charen,
It’s tempting to dismiss all of this as the pathetic bleats of hollow men who merit only derision. But as anthropologists, psychologists, and historians alike can testify, the male need for validation is universal, and when societies fail to offer constructive paths for masculine expression, they court backlash. The negative aspects of masculinity are always lurking just beneath the surface. As Hannah Arendt put it, “Every generation, civilization is invaded by barbarians. We call them ‘children.’”
2. How Putin Conned the American Right
Shay Khatiri in today’s Bulwark:
…Putin gave his annual State of the Nation address to the Duma. His speech centered on the report’s conclusions, and gay marriage featured prominently:
We know that there are more and more people in the world who support our position on defending traditional values that have made up the spiritual and moral foundation of civilization in every nation for thousands of years: the values of traditional families, real human life, including religious life, not just material existence but also spirituality, the values of humanism and global diversity.
The speech made Putin an icon in segments of the right. Pat Buchanan and Franklin Graham wrote op-eds praising him as a new standard-bearer for Christian values. Graham even traveled to Moscow to meet him. Christian groups such as the World Congress of Families began developing stronger associations with Russia, and conservatives on social media began to publicly express support for Putin as an avatar of social conservatism.
Cheap Shots
Pat Buchanan’s take aged badly.
I live in Florida and I am 100% sure that DeSantis doesn't actually want this Disney bill to pass. If he did he would not be going about it the way he currently is. He is not targeting Reedy Creek directly. His proposed solution is to dissolve ALL special districts created on or before 1968. This would sweep up Reedy Creek since it was created in 1967 but it also dissolves:
1) Nearly every housing authority
2) Many airport authorities
3) Many port authorities
4) Many highway authorities
5) Redevelopment districts
6) Daytona Beach Raceway authority
7) Hundreds of other special districts
Florida currently has 1,844 special districts. A huge chunk of those would be eliminated.
It is for that reason that I don't think DeSantis wants this to pass because there is no way in hell the FL Republicans in the state Senate will go along with that. DeSantis is posturing and is setting up a scenario where he can look like he's hitting Disney, without really trying to hit them, and then fundraise the hell out of it when the (((Deep State))) stops the bill.
It's another grift, a scam.
...and that blows apart the prevailing narrative about the media going soft on Hunter Biden. That's already received more coverage than all the Trump kid scandals combined. I'll play the "why isn't/wasn't it a scandal" game:
Jared's deal to sell 666 5th Ave. (many questionable aspects involving Qatar and the Saudis, and worthy of its own article or three)
Trump going soft on China in connection with the ZTE spying revelations, contemporaneously with Chinese copyright approval for Ivanka's home goods
Ivanka private e-mail server (Trump gaslighted the Khashoggi killing to knock the Ivanka story out of the news)
Trump's lawyer dropping money bags on Cy Vance's doorstep, after which investigations into Jr. and Ivanka for possible real estate fraud were dropped
There's more. But no one's heard about it. Must be the liberal media.