Joe Biden has had enough of the GOP attacking Disney: ‘Christ, they’re going after Mickey’
Joe Biden has blasted Republicans for their obsession with dismantling Disney. (Karen Ducey/Getty Images)
US president Joe Biden has thrashed Republicans obsessed with attacking the Walt Disney Company amid the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law.
Biden told a Democratic fundraiser on Thursday (21 April) that the GOP has swung so deeply to the far-right, so much so that even the family-friendly animators have become a target.
Mickey Mouse, the high-pitched Disney mascot, has become the mascot of a growing culture war between Disney and Florida.
At issue: the state’s contentious ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill. The deeply loathed legislation prohibits, among other things, the discussion of LGBT+ identities through the third grade in schools.
“This is not your father’s Republican party,” he said at the Seattle, Washington, fundraiser, according to a transcript published by the White House.
“The far-right has taken over the party.”
“It’s not even conservative in a traditional sense of conservatism,” he added. “it’s mean, it’s ugly. Look at what’s happening in Florida. Christ, they’re going after Mickey Mouse.”
Disney, Florida’s largest private employer that pumped thousands of dollars into state legislators on both sides of the aisle, was initially silent over the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law. Even as Disney staff protested, the company’s CEO Bob Chapek did not wade into the bill’s backlash.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis. (James Gilbert/Getty Images)
Until he eventually did, that is. He pulled funding from the lobbyists and the company condemned the bill, one that should “never have been passed”.
Florida governor and expected Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis quickly threw a tantrum over Disney standing up for LGBT+ rights.
The Florida House voted on Wednesday to revoke Disney World’s 55-year-long designation as a special tax district, which had long allowed the park to effectively govern itself.
In what was seen as brash retribution against Disney by the GOP-controlled legislature, the district, known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District, will be dissolved June next year.
Considering that this was a move DeSantis himself spearheaded, he eagerly signed the law into the books on Friday.
And Republican lawmakers have bis back. Texas senator Ted Cruz recently insisted that Mickey Mous will soon be having sex with Pluto in “every episode“. This is the same party, after all, that has fumed over Dr Seus’s books and M&Ms.
“There’s nothing more conservative about deciding you’re going to throw Disney out of its present posture because … you think we should not be able to say, you know, ‘gay’,” Biden said.
To Biden, how Republican state legislators have made attacking LGBT+ rights a rallying cry even as the party is rudderless without Donald Trump shows it remains a “MAGA” party. At least 238 anti-LGBT+ bills, the bulk targeting trans folk, have been filed so far this year.
This legislative onslaught is pelting American enough though the vast majority of Americans support LGBT+ rights, according to research.
“I mean, what’s going on here? What the hell is going on?” Biden added. “I don’t believe it’s who the vast majority of American people are.”
