Tom Minear: Ron DeSantis fights House of Mouse in White House campaign

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will this week launch his White House campaign, but his rival Donald Trump is betting his war on Disney will bring him undone.

Florida is sometimes described as the Australia of America, a nod to its idyllic weather, dangerous wildlife, and laid-back sense of freedom.

The state’s governor Ron DeSantis doesn’t agree – and not just because of the stark difference in climate between Florida’s Melbourne and ours.

During the pandemic, DeSantis blasted Australia for going “off the rails” with lockdowns as he shunned sweeping restrictions. His Covid approach is central to his campaign for the Republican nomination for president, which he will announce this week.

Going up against Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” schtick, DeSantis’s pitch is to “Make America Florida”, the state he calls a “citadel of freedom”.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was convincingly re-elected last November. Picture: Giorgio Viera (AFP)

His approach is popular – Florida’s economy is booming, new residents are flooding in, and DeSantis was convincingly re-elected last November – but it is also unconventional.

The Republican is no small-government conservative. Instead, he proudly uses every executive power at his disposal to implement his agenda.

This is best summed by what critics call DeSantis’s “don’t say gay” law, which limits the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms. (It has also resulted in schoolbook bans that included a Mem Fox classic – another blow against Australia.)

Disney, Florida’s biggest private employer, has been a vocal opponent. So DeSantis – who was married at Disney World – went after their tax perks, took over the board in charge of development at the theme park, and even suggested building a prison next door.

Disney has been a critic of Florida’s so-called “don’t say gay” laws. Picture: Octavio Jones (AFP)

It’s one thing to suggest corporations stick to their knitting, but it’s quite another to punish them for refusing. As Disney argued in a lawsuit last month, DeSantis’s “targeted campaign of government retaliation” violated its constitutional rights.

This has understandably made some of his freedom-loving friends uncomfortable.

As for Trump, who sees him as his top Republican rival, it’s political gold, especially after Disney scrapped a $US1bn office in Florida that would have brought 2000 jobs.

But DeSantis has not wavered. He is a decisive man of action, as he recently told his donors: “When we say we’re going to do something, we do it, and get it done.”

It was a line that brought home another cross-Pacific comparison that had crossed my mind. DeSantis’s give-no-quarter, getting-things-done approach is strikingly similar to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews – not that either man would care to admit it.

Indeed, when protesters shut down a drag queen event in Melbourne this month, Andrews returned fire on Florida.

“Head over there, where your hateful views might be worth something,” he snarled.

Originally published as Tom Minear: Ron DeSantis fights House of Mouse in White House campaign