(LifeSiteNews) – Former Vice President and 2024 presidential candidate Mike Pence took a shot at GOP presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Tuesday over the latter’s disputes with woke entertainment giant Disney, suggesting that revoking the corporation’s special legal privileges in the Sunshine State was “following in the footsteps of the radical left.”
Disney, which for years has been infusing its mainstream children’s and family entertainment offerings with pro-LGBT messages and other left-wing “identity” themes, took a hardline stance in March 2022 against Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, which bans schools from teaching children in kindergarten through third grade about transgenderism and other sexuality-related issues, limits discussions of sexuality for older children to “age appropriate” content and requires parents to be informed of any changes that could affect their child’s physical, emotional, or mental well-being.
READ: Disneyland announces first-ever ‘Pride Nite’ will take place in June
The ordeal backfired on the company, with the law passing (and later being expanded) despite Disney’s efforts, and DeSantis going on to eliminate the self-governing “special district” status for Disney’s Florida theme park, which exempted it from various state regulations and conferred other financial benefits.
“Allowing a corporation to control its own government is bad policy, especially when the corporation makes decisions that impact an entire region,” DeSantis said in February. “This legislation ends Disney’s self-governing status, makes Disney live under the same laws as everybody else, and ensures that Disney pays its debts and fair share of taxes.”
The move was met with cheers from social conservatives but derision from more establishment-aligned Republicans such as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who tried to frame the battle as government taking punitive action against private business.
On Monday, Pence reiterated his alignment with the latter camp in an op-ed for libertarian magazine Reason, which touted private boycotts against “woke corporations” such as Disney, Target, and Anheuser-Busch as a proper and sufficient response to their political advocacy.
“Governors around the country are right to pursue these policies and protect our kids,” Pence wrote, but “when the governor of Florida decided to launch a full-scale campaign of governmental retribution against Disney, he wasn’t taking a page out of the conservative playbook—he was following in the footsteps of the radical left. In doing so, he not only risked billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs for the state, but even more importantly, he turned his back on the principles that make our country great.”
“Conservatives can either be for politically motivated government intervention in the private sector, or we can be against it,” the former vice president continued, drawing comparisons to former “President Barack Obama’s weaponization of the IRS against conservative groups,” “California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s attacks on Walgreens for putting the law and women’s safety above abortion politics,” and “Colorado bureaucrats forcing Christians like Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop to choose between their businesses and their beliefs.”
“We do not need to abandon our principles in order to win,” Pence concluded. “We simply need leaders with the courage to speak hard truths, and faith that the American people will rally to our cause. Now as always, the physicians of the American soul must resist the temptation to put what is popular over what is wise.”
At no point in the article did Pence share with readers the specifics of what DeSantis and Florida lawmakers actually did regarding Disney, articulate a theory of why a private corporation is legally entitled to special-district status, or explain how rescinding such an arrangement is comparable to subjecting political opponents to federal investigations or attempting to impose crippling fines on private businesses.
This is not the first time Pence has criticized DeSantis for taking on Disney; in May he framed it as “essentially go[ing] after a business that they disagreed with on a political issue” and said “I’ve said for months now I think both sides ought to stand down.”
It is also not the first time the outwardly-devout former vice president, Indiana governor, and U.S. House member drew criticism from social conservatives; last week he said that “I strongly support efforts in my home state of Indiana and around the country to prohibit gender transition, chemical, or surgical treatment for children under the age of 18,” but is “libertarian enough to say if you’re an adult you live while you live. You know, I may not agree with decisions you make, but we’ll love you, and love our neighbor as ourselves as my faith requires.”
Pence currently averages at just under six percent in national polls for the GOP’s 2024 White House nod, which is widely expected to come down to a choice between DeSantis and former President Donald Trump.