Mathews: Anaheim, not Florida, is the best Disney fighter

How Southern California city has managed to contain Disneyland's most aggressive expansion plans.

How best to fight Mickey Mouse?

Florida’s strategy for battling the Walt Disney Company is making national news because it is driven by culture war and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential ambitions. California’s strategy, is little-known because it’s grounded in local concerns in Anaheim.

Contrary to conventional wisdom — that the best defense is good offense — the Anaheim strategy is more likely to succeed.

This is because Florida’s fight resembles nothing so much as Pickett’s Charge, the frontal, ill-considered attack that cost the Confederates the Battle of Gettysburg.

DeSantis declared war on Disney after the company opposed his legislation, known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, restricting teachers from talking about sexual orientation and gender in Florida classrooms. The governor thought that fighting Disney would boost his Republican support. Instead, he’s cratering. Why? Because he’s launched a cultural attack on the world’s most popular producer of culture. Even Donald Trump criticized the governor’s attacks on Disney as excessive.

Instead of changing course, DeSantis dug his hole deeper—moving to strip Disney of control over the local entity governing the Disney World area. Predictably, Disney — with better lawyers than Florida state government — is winning its legal battle with the governor.

DeSantis’ attacks were so ham-handed that he made Disney, a major international corporation, seem sympathetic. Disney has moved to exploit that sympathy in Anaheim — in service of an expansion plan called DisneylandForward.

Disney has all but owned Anaheim since Disneyland’s 1955 open. Today, it is responsible for one in five jobs and a plurality of general fund revenues. The company has used gifts, investment promises, philanthropy and raw political power to secure a list of tax rebates, bonds, and subsidies too long to list here. In 2015, the Los Angeles Times estimated the value of Anaheim’s support for Disney over the previous two decades at $1 billion.

But in the previous decade, some civic leaders — including former Mayor Tom Tait and former councilmember Jose Moreno — got elected despite Disney’s political opposition to them. And in office, they slowed, and in a few cases reversed, giveaways to Disney. As a result, Anaheim has limited Disney’s geographic footprint to where it stood in the 1990s.

The Anaheim strategy most closely resembles Foreign Service Officer George Kennan’s approach to global communism — containment. Politicians avoided frontal assaults on  Disney. In fact, they tried to deemphasize Disney controversies — and emphasize the needs of local neighborhoods.

In the process, they managed to quietly contain Disney’s more aggressive expansion ideas.

Indeed, when the House of Mouse first proposed DisneylandForward in 2021, it went nowhere, with city officials unwilling to prioritize it.

But the door to expansion has been reopening, with city government in turmoil because of a corruption scandal. And Disney-backed candidates have been winning recent elections.

Now, DeSantis’ culture war has made the company politically sympathetic. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has come to view Disney as an ally in his own rhetorical war against DeSantis and other culturally conservative governors, has publicly supported DisneylandForward.

Newsom’s logic here is clear — the enemy (Disney) of my enemy (DeSantis) is my friend. But the governor’s support of Disney (he’s even touting a company-funded economic study) is a mistake, one that may make it harder for Anaheim leaders to negotiate a fair deal with the theme park.

DisneylandForward would give Disney far more control over what happens inside the resort area. That would allow it to squeeze in new attractions like “Frozen” land, a theme park rendition of Zootopia, or a TRON rollercoaster.

But the plan is modest in other ways, reflecting the company’s recognition that it no longer has the sway it once had in Anaheim. DisneylandForward specifically rules out any additions to the company’s Anaheim footprint, for example. The plan is also full of detailed promises of what the House of Mouse will do for the city and its workers — union contractors for future development, local hire rules, a new workforce development program focused on Anaheim’s young people, and company support for affordable housing projects (which Disney has opposed in the past).

To win support, Disney is doing far more than internal lobbying — it is appealing directly to the community. This summer, Disney is hosting community meetings in city parks — the free kind, with green space and playgrounds and pools, not to be confused with the ticketed one — all over Anaheim.

Even with all this effort, DisneylandForward is no sure thing.  Patient containment is a winning strategy. And Anaheim is much tougher than Ron DeSantis.

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.