I’m enjoying Ron DeSantis’s breast beating theatrics regarding Disney, because it’s clear nothing will come out of it.  Disney is at no risk of losing its special jurisdictional status in Florida, and by July, it will be dead and buried.

Why am I so confident?  Because DeSantis is not an idiot, despite playing one on TeeVee.  He’s playing to the base of the Republican Party who admire men who put on the “tough guy” act.  Remember how Trump would get up on stage and claim he would beat the crap outta people?  Trump has never thrown a punch–or taken one–in his life, and neither has DeSantis, but to their base, the fact that they act like they have is all that counts.

By July, the Florida gubernatorial primary will be decided and DeSantis will be crowned the nominee.  That’s when the pivot occurs, from gubernatorial campaign to proto-presidential campaign.  DeSantis needs to win reelection in Florida by a landslide to prove his viability in the presidential race because he won his first election by just 32,300 votes.

From July on, all you’ll hear is how Florida is a “business-friendly” state with little regulation and “Hey, we love corporations!” Republicans in charge.  Knowing how Republicans operate, they likely even be ballsy enough to feature images of Disney World in those ads.  

I can also be confident about this because the model his image makers are emulating is none other than Donald Trump.  Remember the Trump campaign:  he pretended that he was all about the Little Guy against the Big Bad Corporations.  Trump made loads of promises about the things he would do to protect his followers–from creating a health care system that was more efficient, covered more things and cost less; to guaranteeing six weeks paid family leave; to (astonishingly) eliminating the entire federal debt in eight years.  Notice how his promises regarding corporate oversight weren’t even part of his agenda after January 20, 2017.

So listen for DeSantis to make all these same idiotic claims and boasts; he’ll back down.  He doesn’t want to piss off the corporate interests, but he’ll use them as punching bags to get his base.  The other issue, of course, is the risk of alienating corporate donors in the time before the election, something no Republican wants to do.

The question is:  who will do the act more effectively, DeSantis or Trump?