As the NCAAP declares Florida not safe for travel, as Disney strikes out at DeSantis… somehow the state seems unaffected in terms of tourism. Maybe Florida has just always been crazy and people love it all the more?
For a state with so much population and economic power you would think people might try to understand Florida a little better. You might even think that a Fortune 100 business with billions of dollars in fixed assets in the state might try to understand it. But they don’t. Florida seems to like it that way. All the big states have a break between public perception and local reality. Traditionally American media is in Los Angeles and New York City, but California and New York State are beautifully complicated places, and we don’t get to see most of them. Florida’s takes that and dials it up to 11. With the Governor making national news, Disney suing him and Florida Men in our timelines join me while I try to explain a couple of reasons why Florida does what is wants and doesn’t care what you think about it.
Come and let us purify ourselves in the waters of Lake Okeechobee.
While in college I spent a lot of time with Texas rednecks and Florida crackers (don’t blame me, that’s what they’ve called themselves forever and no one knows why). I noticed that the Texans did a lot of work to talk up the brand and the Floridians just didn’t care about what outsiders thought. Think about this, a century ago they were called Floridians then for some reason people added an “I” in the last syllable and the whole state just sort of shrugged and went about their business raising cattle and growing oranges.
Let’s look at Florida politics for the last couple decades. Jeb! Bush was a popular governor in the early 2000’s. When he ran for president in 2016, he dropped out before the Florida primary because he wasn’t getting support in his home state. Charlie Christ was the popular governor after Jeb! and ran for Senate; he got beat in the primary by some random guy from the state legislature. Charlie got beaten again by the same guy in a three-way general election. Then they elected a Governor that looks like an alien and wasn’t as popular, but they sent him to the senate after his gubernatorial term limits hit and keep sending him back. Ron DeSantis, who was basically unknown, became governor by narrowly defeating the mayor of a third-tier city who later turned out to be a big fan of meth. For reelection he beat Charlie Christ who ran for governor again in the interim Charlie worked for an accident attorney and won a safe seat in the House of Representatives.
Florida is a crazy place.
Speaking of governors. Here’s a picture of one.
He’s the one on the right, not the one pulling the cart.
No one loves a good Florida Man story more than Florida Man and he’s always ready to top yours with one that may or may not be entirely truthful. There’s a fierce rivalry between Tampa and Miami about who makes the best Cuban sandwich. The state has a functioning space port and you’re never more than a couple hours from a beach. Jacksonville lays claim to best Southern Rock in the state, Orlando to theme parks, Gainesville the Gators, Tallahassee the ‘Noles, Miami loves the nighlife, and Tampa gets Steakhouses and Strip Clubs (per cap the numbers are positively degenerate). There’s a lot to do and none of it particularly involves being plugged into the media.
A few years ago, the two most popular institutions were Publix and Disney. For those of you who don’t know, Publix is a grocery store chain. The national media attacked the family members of the man who started Publix for their politics, and no one cared. The Governor dissolved a special district Disney controlled and people are talking about sending him to the White House.
Florida is a crazy place.
So how did we get here? There are a bunch of reasons, and the national media is talking about Florida politics, but as I’ve demonstrated the people’s relationship to their governors has been ambivalent for decades. The Florida government works like a machine (the legislature is parttime and the public records laws are insanely liberal), so the people don’t really think about it. Some pollster calls and says, “Do you like the governor?” and the response is something like, “Yeah, what’s his name is fine.”. You ask locals what they think of Disney, and they remember all the fun they had growing up, or working there, maybe even think about the trip they’re already planning to go back. You see, until a couple of years ago a Disney trip for a local wasn’t a once in a lifetime thing, lots of people went every year and if they’re on I-4, multiple times a year.
Things change. Even before covid attendance at the Florida parks was dropping off. You may have noticed DeSantis keeps talking about Disney as a California company, do you think that’s an accident? A quirk of his speech? Florida may be an international vacation destination and the adopted home of Jimmy Buffett, but it’s the native home of Lynyrd Skynyrd. There is a virulent anti-communist streak and even Tampa still has more churches than nudie bars. Bob Iger has spent his tenure with Disney transforming it from a beloved American family brand into the international titan of cross-platform media. Even so, the Walt Disney World Resort is still in the southeastern United States and what plays well with the jet set won’t hunt with the swampers and beach combers. Then again maybe that California way of doing things isn’t sitting as well with the little guy on the west coast as it is with the powerbrokers. There are a lot more people moving from California to Florida than from Florida to California.
Hey, there’s a happy little coincidence!
Disney announced that they’re pulling a billion dollars of investment out of Florida. It was a project to move thousands of employees from Burbank to Orlando. Employees who were refusing to move, the company is hemorrhaging money and the CEO has been against the idea from the start, but sure it’s just the anti-business policies of the Governor. Weird how other theme parks that didn’t get special treatment are expanding. Here’s what I find funny. Ten of thousands of others are fleeing the state, but the people in Disney’s targeted sector want to stay. Could it be there are cultural reasons? Maybe the Cali Boys don’t want to be Florida Men.
Iger talks about Florida as if the Mouse made the state. Remember that Walt went to Tallahassee and promised to build infrastructure for the public good. A small fraction was built and someday it may be for a court to decide if that improperly benefitted a single company to the detriment of others. People talk about the broken promises but that’s missing the forest for the trees. He went to them; they didn’t go to him. Disney (the man) saw opportunity in Florida that wasn’t available in California. Reflect on that. California in the 1960’s wasn’t big enough for his dreams, but Florida was. The Magic Kingdom didn’t build Florida, sunshine and fertilizer did. Really, the phosphates mined in the state’s interior were one of the earliest major industries already transforming the sleepy little place into something else. Maybe it was a mistake to tell a state full of people that you and your company are so important you get to dictate policy from across a continent.
Florida Man may not care what you think, but he doesn’t seem to like you trying to think for him. Maybe that’s why they’re ready to address the power disparity created by special concessions made to a private company. Maybe that’s why a beloved American icon is a little less beloved in its own backward. Remember Bob, just because you get to call it a kingdom doesn’t mean you get to act like a king.
Then again, maybe Florida is just a crazy place, and maybe they like it that way.
P.S. Don’t try to purify yourself in the waters of Lake Okeechobee.
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