At Politico, Derek Robertson has asserted that the GOP’s fight with Disney is proof that the culture has passed the party by. Whether he’s being dishonest or is simply that out of touch, the world Robertson is imagining is nowhere near reality.
“Disney has always been an explicitly morally instructive company,” Robertson informs us, acting baffled that the GOP would “demonize one of America’s most beloved and trusted corporations.” Never mind that this “morally instructive” and “beloved and trusted” corporation thanked Chinese officials involved in genocide in Xinjiang, or that a Trafalgar poll showed that Disney pushing sexual ideas in children’s entertainment is very unpopular.
Truly, how could the GOP think it could win a fight on which 69% of the voting public, including 58% of Democratic voters, agree with them?
Robertson admits that “the specific Florida bill in question is mostly popular.” Yes, that bill (now law), which prevents classroom instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity for children in third grade and lower, is indeed popular across partisan lines. There really is no debate on that fact.
Yet Robertson claims that a few tweets from right-wing activists labeling opponents of the bill as “groomers” is proof that the GOP has lost the plot. When it comes to “support for the racial justice movement and LGBTQ rights,” you see, the Right has been losing since the 1960s. And here is where he gives away the game: “In both cases, conservatives have conflated corporate messaging with support for extreme edge cases within each issue, like police abolition or medical youth gender transition, hoping that Americans will do the same.”
Apparently, Robertson is entirely unaware that President Joe Biden and his administration have declared that these “medical youth gender transitions” are “crucial” and “powerful.” This is not some edge or fringe question but something the leader of the Democratic Party, currently running the executive branch, is mainstreaming in broad daylight. Irreversible chemical and physical mutilations of children’s bodies are effectively part of the Democratic Party platform now, and opponents of this are deemed by Biden himself to be “wrong” and “hateful.”
Police abolition, by the way, is indeed supported by prominent Democratic politicians to this day. It was attempted twice by Democrats on the Minneapolis City Council, and it maintains a substantial amount of support in the culture — for example, in the bizarre continued relevance of media and corporate darling Colin Kaepernick.
So no, these are not “extreme edge cases.” The GOP isn’t picking fights with corporations and painting them as fringe extremists. Those corporations are backing fringe, extremist ideas when they back Kaepernick’s anti-police screeds or the Democratic Party’s support for medical transitions for children. Liberal pundits like Robertson cannot plausibly tell you to pay no attention to the radical liberal ideas behind the curtain.
Disney picked this fight on behalf of the Democratic Party and its extremely obnoxious, unpopular activists. I think Robertson has lost the plot as to who is seeing the culture pass them by.
