Morale down, cronyism up after DeSantis takeover of Disney World government, ex-employees say

MicroWave@lemm.ee to politics @lemmy.world – 490 points –
Morale down, cronyism up after DeSantis takeover of Disney World government, ex-employees say
apnews.com

Morale and trust within the Walt Disney World government has deteriorated since allies of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took it over earlier this year, according to many employees who have departed in recent months saying the governing district has been politicized and cronyism now permeates the organization.

More than 40 out of about 370 employees have left the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District since it was taken over in February, raising concerns that decades of institutional knowledge is departing with them, along with a reputation for a well-run government.

“When I first joined the District, I found an organization that strived to be the very best at serving our community, sought the very best employees and valued those employees above all else,” a former facilities manager with three years of experience said in an employee exit survey last week. “I find myself leaving a completely different District. A District that prioritizes politics above all else and will gladly sacrifice its employees, its community and its work if there’s an opportunity to score political points.”

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As I see it, this whole debacle is as much proof as I or anyone should need that DeSantis is unfit to be president.
When the state's largest employer, one who had supported him in the past on many issues, dared oppose him on one single issue that had taken the national stage (where they could do nothing other than oppose or be seen as discriminatory), he decided to punish them. Not in any way that was even a little bit effective, but in a punitive and immature and ineffective way that has replaced an effective good government agency with a politicized useless committee.
His actions say to me that he is neither a good representative of Florida's people, nor a wise leader, nor even an effective politician. He is a child who had a temper tantrum when he didn't get his way, so he tried to smash his favorite toy and didn't even break it.
We can do better. We have to do better than that, for the good of the nation.

Luckily (or unluckily) national Republican voters overwhelmingly prefer tRump

Unlucky. I think Biden is a better candidate than either of them, but I think the American people deserve to have two decent choices to pick from.
I have no particular love for the DNC either or many of the Democratic candidates we've seen, but at least they manage to more often than not put forward someone who would at least make a semi-functional administrator who tries to execute some sort of plan.

And Disney didn't even strongly oppose DeSantis. It was a wishy-washy sort of opposition and DeSantis responded to it with a "I'm going to destroy Disney!"

Yeah, right. People can have their quarrels with how Disney operates, but you can't deny that Disney is a powerhouse. You do NOT want to get on their legal team's bad side unless your case is VERY good.

Exactly. They are a huge company, they win when they fight, and they are also his state's biggest employer. Why pick a fight with them at all? It's stupid. There was no reason for it.

Hell, if DeSantis had two brain cells to rub together, he'd have met privately with Disney and said this is important to me, so oppose it publicly all you want just don't put any serious action into it, and we can pretend to fight but still be friends. That's a win-win, Disney gets the credit for being woke, he gets the credit for being anti-gay, they each play their roles. I'm pretty sure Disney would have gone for that. Shady as fuck of course, but far more effective for everybody than the childish tantrum he went off with.

Whoever sits in the oval office should be clever enough to see possibilities like that, not emotional to have a tantrum when he doesn't get his way.

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