Yeah, so here's a critical distinction: The move toward mounting a travel boycott of Florida was never about hurting Disney, though leaders who proposed it knew the move would hurt Disney as an unintended side effect — just like the it would hurt queer people in Florida as an unintended side effect in the short term.

Mounting a punative travel boycott of Florida was about putting Darth and his storm troopers on notice that hate-driven populism has negative business consequences.

The Florida GOP is a DeSantis creature right now, but that could change in a heartbeat if Florida's business community (natural Republicans for the most part) began to bleed from their bottom lines.

"Hey, Darth. Buddy. Pal" says the CEO of a midsized corporation that relies on tourism for most of its profits. "You gotta chill on all the rhetoric that's making people think twice about vacationing here in paradise. I mean, much more of your "success," and I'm not not gonna be able to afford campaign contributions anymore. Here what I'm saying, big guy?"

Imagine that conversation repeated dozens of times.

And it might have worked. Probably might have worked. Because Americans are getting sick and tired of what they're hearing coming out of Florida. Plenty of Americans are already thinking that Florida's not a safe or fun place to go for pleasure.

But a boycott isn't going to organize itself. The conversations I described in the article above were held by leaders of prominent LGBTQ groups and a few Black civil rights groups. Together, they felt that launching a PR campaign to urge people to vacation anywhere except Florida could really take off. All it needed was a few sparks in the right place at the right time.

But once Disney announced its campaign to bring tens of thousands of LGBTQ folks to Disney World, where they'd listen to a few speakers and then live it up at theme parks and spend millions in the Florida economy well ... to say those sparks would never have a chance of lighting anything is an understatement.

Cuz Disney made it cool to go to Florida. Disney made it look like going to Florida is an act of resistance.

Going to Florida is not an act of resistance. The conference Disney is sponsoring there will barely matter anyway.

I don't wanna harshly diss the conference, but come on. It's a bunch of DEI leaders getting together to talk about how inclusive their corporations and universities are ... then running outside to ride rollercoasters and back inside to eat gourmet Disney meals paid for by their employers.

A Florida travel boycott would have been far more powerful and impactful.

But anyway, water over the damn ...

I'm glad you like my Darth Santis coinage. Do feel free to use it anywhere and everywhere. :-)