The Florida residents say the state’s dissolution of the corporate giant’s private government — and its special tax status — will burden them with more than $1 billion in bond debt.
The Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. (John Raoux/AP)
MIAMI (CN) — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis violated the rights of taxpayers when he signed a law removing Disney’s self-governing status, three residents claim in a federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday.
In the 11-page complaint, Michael Foronda, Edward Foronda and Vivian Gorsky — all of whom live near the Walt Disney World theme park and resort — say the state’s actions will saddle them and other taxpayers with Disney’s bond debt estimated at more than $1 billion.
“Plaintiffs, who are property owners in the surrounding counties, fear that they will now have to assume the tax burden that Disney previously assumed under the special tax status,” the complaint states. “Their fear is well founded, and it is through this taxpayer lawsuit and mandamus action that they are able to protect their rights.”
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, names the Republican governor, Florida Secretary of State Laurel M. Lee and Florida Department of Revenue Director Jim Zingale as defendants. DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The GOP-controlled Florida Legislature voted to remove Disney’s self-governing status last month, following a battle over the corporation’s opposition to the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. DeSantis signed the bill, SB 4C, a few days later.
The law will dissolve independent special districts created before 1968, including the Reedy Creek Improvement District that contained Walt Disney World, in June 2023 unless a new agreement is reached.
The company lobbied for the special district more than 50 years ago so that it could act as a county government. Disney owns the roads and utilities in the 25,000-acre district and also operates a police force and fire department there.
Unless Disney and the state government reach another agreement, the special district will dissolve and all assets and liabilities will be transferred to local governments, according to the bill’s language. Disney would also lose the ability to construct new buildings or roads without local oversight and potentially cumbersome zoning restrictions.
The law is widely considered to be retaliation for Disney’s opposition to the state’s Parental Rights in Education law, known more commonly as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which bans the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity topics from kindergarten through third grade. Disney heavily criticized the bill, which was signed into law by DeSantis in March, and vowed to end any political contributions to state lawmakers.
The federal lawsuit makes note of this, claiming DeSantis “intended to punish Disney for a First Amendment protected ground of free speech,” which “directly resulted in a violation of plaintiffs’ Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process of law.”
The plaintiffs also allege stripping Disney of its special status, and burdening residents with debt and some public safety responsibilities now paid for by the theme park, violates the Florida Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
Disney has so far stayed mum on the issue, though the Reedy Creek Improvement District did send a message to bondholders last week reminding them that the law establishing the special district mandates all debts must be paid before changing its status.
“In light of the state of Florida’s pledge to the district’s bondholders, Reedy Creek expects to explore its options while continuing its present operations, including levying and collecting its ad valorem taxes and collecting its utility revenues, paying debt service on its ad valorem tax bonds and utility revenue bonds, complying with its bond covenants and operating and maintaining its properties,” the statement reads.
The plaintiffs are represented by Miami-based attorney William Sanchez.
The right wing / religious right cannot stand adult people making the living arrangements that work for them. They are insistent on everyone having the nuclear family that tradition describes. A dad who can do what he wants outside the house and is served by a mommy who takes care of his property while providing him with frequent pleasure, producing his kids which she raises. Everyone must do this by decree of tradition and god! The right wing / religious right doesn’t want other adults to make their own choices in life, to do what is good for themselves without harming others. This law ends the Golden girls style of living. The right wing / religious right has tried for ever to stop co-habitation without marriage. I wonder what other adult arrangements will become illegal next?
On Monday, a Johnson County city unanimously voted to ban a living arrangement aimed at helping tenants decrease the amount of rent they pay. The Shawnee City Council voted 8-0 to ban co-living, which has gained popularity in recent years as rent and home prices have soared.
The new ordinance defines a co-living group as a group of at least four unrelated adults living together in a dwelling unit. The ordinance stated that if one adult is unrelated to another adult, then the entire group will be classified as unrelated.
The practice, which includes things like sharing a kitchen, living room and community areas, started to gain popularity as rental and housing prices continued to increase across the United States.
“City Staff received input and concerns from residents and City Council members regarding a relatively new trend where single family homes are being purchased and converted into rental units with multiple individual tenants,” a memorandum of the ordinance said.
“In this arrangement, individual tenants have leases of varying lengths, have separate secured access to their rooms, and often do not know or have relationships with the others who are also occupying the same single family dwelling,” the memo continued, saying the rental arrangements are “not typical of common rental uses in single family districts that are occupied by family units.”
Since it was approved unanimously a week ago, Shawnee’s decision has made news well beyond the Kansas City metro, with one national publication saying the city had “effectively [made] roommates illegal.”
The new ordinance has also been called out by KC Tenants, a local tenants rights group whose director Tara Raghuveer evoked Johnson County’s history of redlining and tweeted that groups of adults living together in an apartment or house is one of the few affordable options for lower-income people in the area.
But Shawnee council members pushed back forcefully this week, saying that, in fact, they’ve struck a blow to keep home prices from ballooning even faster than they have already. They said their motives for passing the co-living restrictions have been misrepresented.
A recent Shawnee City Council decision to ban “co-living” arrangements has drawn accusations of classism, racism and a callous disregard for the people struggling to afford homes and apartments in Johnson County.https://t.co/PoXZDjGA4T
Shawnee City Council unanimously passed an ordinance that bans ‘co-living.’ Here’s a look at what that actually means for renters. https://t.co/xjOyWFmhEv
If you want to stop ballooning home prices, limit short-term rentals. Limit the number of homes speculative buyers and giant rental companies can buy. Don’t make roommates illegal for people who are struggling so much they can’t make their own rent payment. Sheesh.
Hint: they are lying about the reason. They are not helping people. They are helping corporations. With the added bonus of brutalizing the poor, particularly women. Thus forcing women to be depended on men to whom they are related. Handmaid’s Tale continues.
For some people – for me, when I was a student – it’s a choice between living with flatmates and being homeless. Inspiring to see municipal leaders taking such a strong pro-homelessness stance.
More “small government” conservatives no doubt. I don’t see how this is remotely constitutional but with the Roberts Alito court, I’m sure they would side with the wealthy.
If you can’t afford to rent your own place then you can’t live in their town. The are forcing out low income people to move out so their town will only have upper class people.
So, in this town, someone who is elderly, single, needs care, and has no biological relatives can’t move in with people they’ve known for years. For instance, when I get to the stage I need assistance, I couldn’t move in with my best friend, his wife, and daughter, even though they are my sole heirs? What a stupid law.
Yeah, that clause about “any one of the people being unrelated means they’re all unrelated” makes it incredibly problematic for a lot of cases. I’ve been in situations where I nearly moved in with some friends for a month or so after some major surgery (it was incredibly generous of them to offer), but that would put them in danger with this ban. Assisted living, same problem.
Hell, I’ve got an aunt and uncle (eta: that’s what I’ve called them my entire life, but they are unrelated) that immigrated to the US, and when they became citizens, they changed their last name to my family name because of our long, generational friendship. But if I took them in if, say, their home got destroyed, boom, banned under this setup.
problem is – – – this is typical of nearly all of Johnson County, one of the wealthiest in the US. The renters would have to move to Wyandotte, Leavenworth, or Douglas County. Like the president of Santa Clara Community College in California living nearly 50 miles from campus to find housing affordable for her two professional earners household.
The fact that it is “one of the wealthiest (areas) in the US” is the issue. People in affluent neighborhoods don’t want what’s essentially a rooming house next door. They want to keep “those people” as far away from them as possible.
Civilians trying to leave Mariupol after weeks of siege
Moscow steps up assault in Ukraine’s south, eastern Donbas
KYIV/LVIV, May 2 (Reuters) – The European Union was preparing sanctions on Russian oil sales over its invasion of Ukraine after a major shift on Monday by Germany, Russia’s biggest energy customer, that could deprive Moscow of a large revenue stream within days.
The European Commission is expected to propose a sixth package of EU sanctions this week against Russia over its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, including a possible embargo on buying Russian oil.
Kyiv says Russia’s energy exports to Europe, so far largely exempt from international sanctions, are funding the Kremlin war effort with millions of euros every day.
“This package should include clear steps to block Russia’s revenues from energy resources,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
Germany said on Monday it was prepared to back an immediate EU embargo on Russian oil.
“We have managed to reach a situation where Germany is able to bear an oil embargo,” German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said. read more
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has been more cautious than other Western leaders in backing Ukraine, has been under growing pressure to take a firmer line.
Scholz vowed sanctions will not be lifted until Russian President Vladimir Putin signs a peace deal with Ukraine that Kyiv can support, he said in an interview with ZDF public television. read more
Weaning Europe off Russian oil is likely to be easier than reducing dependence on Russian natural gas. Moscow has demanded European customers pay for gas in rubles, which the EU rejects. Last week, Moscow cut off supplies to Poland and Bulgaria.
EU ministers meeting on Monday warned that complying in full with Moscow’s demand for gas payments in roubles would breach existing EU sanctions.
Ambassadors from EU countries will discuss the proposed oil sanctions when they meet on Wednesday.
The first civilians to be evacuated from a giant steel plant in Mariupol arrived on Monday in the Ukrainian-held city of Zaporizhzhia after an overnight bus journey across the front-line.
Ukraine says hundreds of civilians have been trapped inside the Azovstal plant along with the city’s last Ukrainian defenders. Dozens were able to leave on Sunday in an evacuation organised by the United Nations, the first to escape since Putin ordered the plant barricaded last week.
Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, 39, a deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, told Reuters from inside the plant that fighters could hear voices of women, children and elderly people trapped below ground, and lacked the equipment to dig them out. read more
“We were planning to tear up the bunkers, the entrance to which is blocked, but all night into Monday naval artillery and barrel artillery were firing. All day today aviation has been working, dropping bombs,” Palamar said by Zoom.
Efforts to organise the evacuation of civilians from other parts of the city, now held by the Russians, ran into delays. Ukraine says 100,000 people are still in the ruined city, enduring desperate conditions after months of Russian siege.
“Our house is completely destroyed. We had a two-story building, it’s not there anymore. It burned to the ground,” said Natalya Tsyntomirska, a Mariupol native who reached Zaporizhzhia on Monday in a funeral service van.
Zelenskiy said the evacuation effort was continuing and he expected more movement of people through humanitarian corridors on Tuesday from Berdyansk, Tokmak and Vasylivka.
For its part, Kyiv hopes a massive influx of Western military aid will allow it to repel that assault and then turn the tide with a counter-attack.
Russian forces shelled the city of Kharkiv five times on Monday, injuring five people, according to regional governor Oleh Sinehubov. Further south, Izyum remained a battleground, with most of the houses in the city destroyed, he said.
After being forced to abandon an assault on Kyiv at the end of March, Russia launched a major offensive in eastern Ukraine focused on the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, parts of which were already held by Russian-backed separatists before the invasion. Russian troops are now trying to encircle a large Ukrainian force there, attacking from three directions with massive bombardment along the front.
Ukraine’s military said on Monday Russian forces were trying to take over the frontline Luhansk province town of Rubizhne and prepare an assault on nearby Sievierodonetsk.
The heaviest clashes were taking place around Popasna, farther south. Shelling was so intense it was not possible to collect bodies, said regional Governor Serhiy Gaidai.
”I don’t even want to speak about what’s happening with the people living in Popasna, Rubizhne and Novotoshkivske right now. These cities simply don’t exist anymore. They have completely destroyed them.”
Russia has also been striking targets far from the front line with missiles. A 14-year-old boy was killed and a 17-year-old girl was wounded in a missile strike in the southern port of Odesa when a missile hit a dormitory, Zelenskiy said. read more
A courageous move on Germany’s part. It’s going to hit them hard in the pocketbook, but kudos to them for taking the plunge anyway for all the right reasons. If we experienced the same degree of economic impact as Germany’s about to experience the deplorables would be blaming it all on Biden then lighting up their tiki torches to march in the streets in thug gangs demanding Biden’s head on a stick.
Is there a conspiracy theory these Republican right wingers won’t buy? Seriously you have to believe every border patrol officer, most who were over the last few years ripping babies from mother’s arms to sperate families, are liberals who support Biden enough to let drugs into the country specifically to be delivered to right wingers. Who is forcing these right wingers to take the drugs? Or do right wingers like the rest of the country have personal problems and need help with addiction?
The new right faux-populists blame immigration for opioid overdoses. It’s an old trick with a long, racist history.
On Friday, Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance pushed an anti-immigration conspiracy theory that alleged President Joe Biden was deliberately allowing drug smugglers to import fentanyl to the United States to kill Donald Trump voters. The theory has also been put forward by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, whom the New York Times recently characterized as running “what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news.”
Vance made the allegations in a recent interview with Jim Hoft, founder of the far-right site Gateway Pundit. “If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better than to target them and their kids with this deadly fentanyl,” Vance told Hoft, later adding: “It does look intentional. It’s like Joe Biden wants to punish the people who didn’t vote for him. And opening up the floodgates to the border is one way to do it.”
This allegation sounds remarkably similar to a line of argument Carlson used on his February 8 show. After stoking fear about a Biden administration harm reduction policy for people who use crack, Carlson pivoted to the opioid overdose crisis. “I seem to remember reading somewhere that more than 100,000 Americans died last year from opioid ODs. What are we doing about that? Well, good question, and the answer is nothing,” Carlson said.
He then offered an explanation that hinged on a lie that Biden is pursuing an “equity agenda” that deliberately seeks to benefit people of color at the expense of white people, toward the ultimate goal of their political subjugation. “Those 100,000 Americans weren’t from officially marginalized groups. Their deaths have nothing to do with the equity agenda. In fact, their deaths may have helped the equity agenda by changing the demographics of the country in a way that benefits the Democratic Party,” Carlson said. “So as far as the Biden administration is concerned, it’s not a bad trend.”
Carlson concluded that although the United States had suffered high levels of overdose deaths, “these are exactly the kind of people the administration hates anyway, so with equity in mind, the White House plans to continue allowing as much fentanyl as possible to come into this country through Mexico.” In reality, border seizures of fentanyl in the final year of Trump’s term largely mirror the current rates under Biden. More broadly, the overdose epidemic in the United States is a complicated phenomenon, driven by drug manufacturers, a for-profit health care system, and economic precarity that’s resulted from deindustrialization and an overall decline in the power of organized labor. It is not caused by immigrants.
It’s not surprising that Vance might adopt this talking point from Carlson. His political life is dependent on the Trump-Carlson wing of the Republican Party, and his turnaround from flagging candidate to front-runner came in the wake of Trump’s endorsement. Vance’s main opponent in the Republican primary, Josh Mandel, has also modeled himself after Trump, but the increasingly acrimonious rivalry shows that simply adopting the former president’s bigoted rhetoric isn’t always enough to avoid the dreaded “establishment candidate” label, as Don Trump Jr. referred to Mandel on Twitter.
Beyond Trump and Carlson, Vance is a creation of GOP megadonor Peter Thiel, the far-right billionaire with ties to the faux-populist “New Right,” as well as to overt white nationalists. Last year, Thiel co-launched a new project called the Rockbridge Network that seeks to reshape the Republican Party in Thiel’s image. Vance, and his fellow Senate candidate Blake Masters, were recipients of Thiel donations totaling at least $10 million apiece.
This group often pays lip service to a narrow conception of the working class — basically white men in hard hats and their wives — but their pro-worker rhetoric is predicated on blaming immigrants for falling wages, and increased crime and drug use. Given the long history of associating immigrant communities with drug crime, stretching back to anti-Chinese racism around opium and anti-Mexican racism around marijuana, it’s not shocking that Carlson and Vance would recycle these tropes. But, as Vance might say, it does look intentional.
“It does look intentional. It’s like Joe Biden wants to punish the people who didn’t vote for him.” — JD Vance, arguing Biden is purposely flooding the country with fentanyl to get revenge on Trump voters pic.twitter.com/PGAFPH9BWQ
Huh … he should be asked where the fentanyl is coming in from … cuz’ cousin Wheels Abbott said his Rangers found …zero .. drugs on their “border inspections”
I would like to thank Nan for the link to this interesting story. It emphasizes what I had figured that the support for Russia comes from those who are waging the culture wars against the LGBTQ+ and those Christian Nationalist who want the nation ruled by their church doctrines. I want to point the article uses the term wokeism. I find the use of this term stupid in that it is not used by the left. It is useless. It may have been started by young college kids or people on social media but real liberals / progressives never used it. The right uses it as an insult and it means what ever they want it to mean, because they want it to be an insult. Don’t like broccoli today then broccoli is woke. I once heard a great explanation over what the term P.C. meant. It means. It means trying to be decent to other people and not hurting their feelings. Oh how evil a thing that is. Being decent to others, not hurting their feelings if possible, how dare you ask that. To me woke is the same idea. Again I have no idea of why the right pushes this woke thing, but to me it means just be a decent person, take care of others along with yourself, and leave things better than you found them if possible. Makes hating woke weird doesn’t it.
I also want to address this issue that there is an extreme leftist movement in the US. Maybe on college campuses. I don’t even think communes exist anymore. There is no extreme leftism in the US. There is a desire of progressives to copy the ideas of the more progressive advanced societies like the Scandinavian countries or even Canada to give the people some benefits of the GDP of the country. That is the extreme left in the US, stopping runaway unregulated capitalism that diverts all the countries wealth to the upper levels of wealthy people. That is what they do in Russia, give all the countries wealthy to the wealthy rulers so the public has to live more desperately in poverty every year. In other countries the government works for all people and everyone benefits. In the US and Russia the wealthy benefit and the rest of the people slowly sink into more poverty and despair. These are facts that you can look up on google. The best times in the US for all people economically were between 1950 to 1980 when the wealthy / large corporations paid the highest share of the costs of government and the government served the public. Those are facts. Many people in the US alive today can remember those times. Is that woke? If so bring back woke. Is that PC? If so bring back PC. But the right loves the tRump thug idea of never backing down, never making a mistake, calling everyone else names, being a bully, and ruling hard over everyone else. They constantly talk of Alpha males vs Beta males? Why? Because their idea of tough and great is the biggest meanest bully who hurts others to get their own way all the time. No one stands up to that bully or corrects them when they call black people names, call gays fagots, and laughs about making others please them, by force if need be. They would have adored my abusive brawling adoptive male parent, he was maga before maga was born. I prefer to be a decent human being. So call me woke I don’t take it as an insult to be a decent person.
One more point. The US never tried to establish liberal democracies anywhere. That is a falsehood that makes the US look better to itself. The rest of the world knew clearly what the US was doing. We were establishing governments where our US corporations / businesses could flourish and make large profits. We changed government not to help the people of those countries, but to help businesses make money. Look at the history of each US involvement of any country and you seen that US business first were blocked out and then after the US invaded or changed the government the US businesses were at the top of the list of new companies into the country. Look at Iraq, US oil companies rushed to get the oil field management contracts. Why is the US government against Venezuela? Because the government there wouldn’t let the US oil companies have their oil, instead nationalizing them for the people of the country. Why do you think the US turned on Castro when we were dealing with dictators all over the world? He threw out the large companies that owned the farmland and forced the people to work like slave labor to make sugar companies wealthy and companies stealing the wealth of other resources of the island. I hate this fake idea that the US was a benevolent loving country coming in to save the people. Look at our own people to see that is not true. The US was coming in to save the profits of big business.
Those who care about conservatism’s moral integrity should vehemently condemn the misguided Russophilia on the right
This column originally appeared exclusively for subscribers who are signed up for the NP Comment newsletter, NP Platformed.
Most of the western world is united in opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but unfortunately, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been supported by many on the far right and the far left. While the far left has spent decades apologizing for foreign autocrats under the misguided belief that anything anti-American is inherently good, the far right’s infatuation with Russia is a newer and more unexpected development. Those who care about conservatism’s moral integrity should vehemently condemn this misguided Russophilia.
In the United States, far-right politicians, such as Republican representatives Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene, have echoed Russian talking points, suggesting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a “thug” and that his government is filled with neo-Nazis.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump made several statements lauding Putin’s aggression towards Ukraine and initially called the invasion “smart.” To Trump’s credit, after photos of Ukrainian suffering reached the public, he shifted positions and condemned Russia’s invasion as a “holocaust,” though he continues to praise Putin and criticize NATO.
American far-right media figures have also parroted Kremlin propaganda. Conservative commentator Candace Owens has consistently promoted Putin’s narratives, such as the claim that Ukrainian nationhood is an illegitimate invention of the Soviet Union, which is historically inaccurate. Meanwhile, conservative media icon Tucker Carlson amplified a Russian conspiracy theory that the United States was operating secret bio labs in Ukraine.
In Canada, People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier has latched onto conspiracy theories that undermine support for Ukraine. He has implied, among other things, that Canada supports Ukraine because Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland’s grandfather may have been a Nazi sympathizer (I guess Bernier believes that political views are hereditary).
Russia obviously does not have the West’s best interests in mind, as Putin frequently argues that Russians must prevail in an existential battle against the United States and the European Union. Why, then, have so many western conservatives lost their moral compass and chosen to support a regime that actively opposes their own interests?
The main reasons seem to be the all-consuming viciousness of America’s culture wars and the delegitimization of neoconservative foreign policy.
Many on the far right are so narrowly focused on litigating cultural issues that they’re willing to make unethical alliances if it helps them vanquish wokeism. In the post-Soviet era, Russia has re-embraced Christianity and traditional values, which it has conspicuously positioned in opposition to the “degenerate” West. Russia’s cultural conservatism makes it a convenient ally against wokeism — “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is a devastatingly relevant adage here.
Putin has cleverly exploited this and has explicitly drawn parallels between Russia and American anti-wokeism, claiming, for example, that western elites are trying to “cancel” Russia like they cancelled J.K. Rowling.
Many conservatives swallowed Putin’s bait and now gleefully align themselves with Russia, despite the fact that, in practically every other respect, Russia does not align with western values. There are now conservatives who ostensibly champion freedom, but defend a dictator who poisons political dissidents. We have conservatives who rally against out-of-touch elites, but romanticize Russia, a country that is ruled by an unaccountable oligarchy.
“Has Putin ever called me a racist?” asked Tucker Carlson, as if that single factor, which is so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, absolves Russia of responsibility for its war crimes.
I consider myself a moderate conservative and think that wokeism is a problem that needs to be addressed. But I oppose wokeism because of its infringements on personal liberty, individualism and pluralism. When the far right looks to Russia as an ideal, a country where liberty is non-existent, I find it embarrassing and discrediting.
It’s the conservative equivalent of when moderate leftists feel mortified by their extremist counterparts who romanticize the Soviet Union and Maoist China. In both cases, ideologues lose the forest through the trees, wilfully blinding themselves to the obvious immorality of repressive regimes.
Not too long ago, conservative Russophilia would have been inconceivable. From the 1960s to the early 2010s, neoconservatism dominated right-wing politics. This strain of conservatism was confident in the supremacy of American values. It had faith in liberal democracy, which it aggressively promoted throughout the world through a highly interventionist foreign policy.
However, in the aftermath of the Cold War, neoconservatives became arrogant. The Bush era, with its endless entanglements in the Middle East, made it clear that imposing liberal democracy on unwilling nations was a recipe for disaster. Neoconservative foreign policy lost its moral credibility and collapsed under the weight of its own hubris.
This created an intellectual and political vacuum that was filled with Trumpist isolationism. Conservatism turned inward, towards domestic frictions, both economic and cultural. Foreign policy became an afterthought, and the less attention that was given to it, the more it could be subsumed by the demands of domestic politics.
So now we have an American conservatism that lacks a strong foreign policy vision — a diminished and pessimistic conservatism that doesn’t have faith in liberal democracy. Rather than asserting western excellence to the world, this brand of conservatism tethers itself to Russia, a hostile second-rate regional power. It’s a sad development to see — not only because of the immediate humanitarian costs that are abetted by Putin’s useful idiots, but also because conservatism should be bigger than this. We need a stronger conservative movement that has the integrity to stand against its enemies, rather than betray itself to score petty partisan victories.
As anyone reading above can see I do not really agree with the article. The article is trying to build a case that is not there. Basically the article is trying to blame the left for the right loving the strongman tactics of Putin. That is incorrect. The right loves tRump because he is a bully thug who is lower educated, never backs down, never pays a price for what he does, seems to make the rules instead of following them, is above the consequences for his actions / words. Who does that sound like? Putin. Who did tRump bow to, Putin. That is why the right loves Putin, he is above their cult lord. But now what about the rest of the Russia supporters? That was mentioned in the article but in my opinion glossed over. Bigotry and racism are the keys. Let’s look at racism first. What do the white supremacist love about Russia? It’s hegemony. It is mostly all white and minorities are really treated shitty. Look at pictures from Russia. You only see white people. Racist mention this all the time. They love it. Putin is their hero because they think he enforces that racism. Then there are the religious aspect / people. That is the bigotry part. Why do people like Brian Brown (who is a co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), and became In 2001, Brown became the executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, a socially conservative organization.) love Russia and travel there frequently? They adore what Putin did by turning to the Russian Orthodox Church which has become a vital pillar of support for Putin. The Christian Nationalist in the US look at what Putin has done in Russia as the blueprint on how to get their church in charge of the US. They love the Kremlin making LGBTQ+ illegal in Russia, these Christian nationalist love how Putin uses the state’s power to enforce the churches doctrines and dictates. They want that here, and now are copying those laws here with the don’t say gay laws, and the dictates trying to force doctors to practice medicine only on state approved church doctrines. It is a dangerous convergence of two hateful groups who want their way of life only over all others. It is scary but it seems they may make the US into Russia, they are well on their way to doing so.
