Suddenly and without any evidence, the Saturday edition of CNN This Morning Weekend suggested that if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis were to become president, he might target companies who produce ads with interracial couples in the same way he went after Disney.
As Disney officially loses its practical city-state status, host Boris Sanchez asked professor emeritus of political science at Rollins College and author of Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando Richard Foglesong, “And notably as you mentioned, Governor DeSantis does have potentially presidential aspirations. In the recent moves that he's made, it’s notable that as you said, he is a Republican. Republicans are typically much more friendly to private businesses, right? What do you make of what critics are calling an infringement on a private entity?”
There is a big difference between being friendly towards private business and allowing business to operate independently of state law and speaking of state law, CNN’s chyron continued the tradition of peddling the false narrative that the law is called the “Don’t Say Gay Law.”
For his part, Foglesong’s response started well enough. Trying to be the dispassionate academic, he recalled that he was “shocked last summer when this was proposed” and that time will tell if it pays off for DeSantis, “we'll see whether politics have changed enough so that an anti-wokeness strategy that he is pursuing maybe therefore in his presidential campaign will work even when he is using it against major corporation and punishing them, in effect, for speaking out.”
However, Foglesong then took a sharp left and launched into a wild hypothetical, “Will other big companies, Ford Motor, the ones that advertise at the Super Bowl, are they be frightened that this governor, if president, would do the same thing to them when they run commercials that show racially mixed couples together. We'll see if that happens, but politics has changed. It's more about cultural issues these days than it was about -- than it is about economics, taxes, issues of that sort.”
At no point has DeSantis or any other Republican come out and said that they have a problem with interracial relationships. If companies are frightened it’s because of conspiracy theory-filled TV segments like this one.
This segment was sponsored by Bath Fitter.
Here is a transcript for the February 11 show:
CNN This Morning Weekend
2/11/2023
7:47 AM ET
BORIS SANCHEZ: And notably as you mentioned, Governor DeSantis does have potentially presidential aspirations. In the recent moves that he's made, it’s notable that as you said, he is a Republican. Republicans are typically much more friendly to private businesses, right?
RICHARD FOGLESONG: Absolutely.
SANCHEZ: What do you make of what critics are calling an infringement on a private entity?
FOGLESONG: Yeah, I was shocked last summer when this was proposed and I'm shocked now too. We'll see how it plays for him. He is a cultural warrior. We know that. This all started with his attack on wokeness, wokeness in our public schools, wokeness in the diversity and training program used on campus, so to speak, by the Disney company and we'll see whether politics have changed enough so that an anti-wokeness strategy that he is pursuing maybe therefore in his presidential campaign will work even when he is using it against major corporation and punishing them, in effect, for speaking out. Will other big companies, Ford Motor, the ones that advertise at the Super Bowl, are they be frightened that this governor, if president, would do the same thing to them when they run commercials that show racially mixed couples together.
We'll see if that happens, but politics has changed. It's more about cultural issues these days than it was about -- than it is about economics, taxes, issues of that sort.
