{"id":36362,"date":"2023-09-27T12:27:06","date_gmt":"2023-09-27T16:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=36362"},"modified":"2023-09-27T12:27:11","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T16:27:11","slug":"why-did-ron-desantis-go-limp-when-georgia-pacific-abandoned-a-small-florida-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/09\/27\/why-did-ron-desantis-go-limp-when-georgia-pacific-abandoned-a-small-florida-town\/","title":{"rendered":"Why did Ron DeSantis go limp when Georgia-Pacific abandoned a small Florida town?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Florida Politics<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He launched<\/a> a legislative blitz against Disney when it dared to weigh in on a law aiming to stamp out talk of LGBTQ issues in schools. He demanded<\/a> the state try to sue Bud Light\u2019s parent company after the beer brand involved a transgender actress in a marketing campaign. He dedicated<\/a> the bulk of a Legislative Session to his war against \u201cBig Tech\u201d companies.<\/p>\n\n\n

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But when \u2014 in an audacious display of greed \u2014 Georgia-Pacific threatens the existence of the rural town of Perry, all that known-corporate-assailant Gov. Ron DeSantis can muster is a feeble request for severance benefits in a barebones statement devoid of criticism of the paper giant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why? The issue is too real. There\u2019s no sexy culture-war angle. It doesn\u2019t exhibit any of that forbidden wokeness and DeSantis won\u2019t touch something that doesn\u2019t advance his national ambitions. He\u2019s far too busy losing<\/a> a presidential campaign. Moreover, the Koch-owned Georgia-Pacific is only being cutthroat and cruel, precisely the kind of business traits that DeSantis and his party tolerate and encourage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Georgia-Pacific threw the entire town of Perry into jeopardy when it said last week that it would soon shutter its Foley Cellulose mill. The announcement<\/a> was as corporate as it gets: a nine-sentence press release to end 70 years of hard work and 525 jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a flash, one of the largest employers<\/a> in Taylor County pulled the rug on the people of Perry \u2014 population of around 7,000 \u2014 as they still licked their wounds<\/a> from the Category 4 Hurricane Idalia that swept through the area just weeks ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One might think that a corporation puts itself in political crosshairs when it inflicts deliberate economic devastation in the aftermath of a massive hurricane. But it wasn\u2019t until nearly two days after the announcement that DeSantis quietly released<\/a> a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It read in relevant part: \u201cI am calling on Georgia-Pacific to do what\u2019s right: pay severance and insurance that will bridge the gap and allow these hard working Floridians to get back on their feet \u2014 especially after a hurricane.\u201d He also said there will be a job fair to help those displaced, hosted by an agency that has long been tasked with doing just that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No official press release. No site visit. None of his usual authoritarian hallmarks like manipulating the levers of government to punish corporate dissenters. The statement doesn\u2019t begin to hint at anything resembling admonishment and yet it\u2019s authored by a man who\u2019s been so eager to wield the stick in the past. If Disney chief Bob Iger so much as sneezed at Tallahassee, it would prompt more of a reaction from DeSantis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the lackluster response is explained by the fact that DeSantis is a busy man. He\u2019s on mission to build as much clout as he can as his presidential campaign enters end-of-life care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just look at what did fetch more attention from the executive branch last week, such as the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s alleged influence over some of the best private schools in the state<\/a>. That somehow merited its own Friday press release \u2014 a transparent attempt to manufacture news for his national campaign over the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if DeSantis did care about the mill closure, he\u2019s all but abandoned his official responsibilities. There were \u201cno scheduled events\u201d on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, according to daily schedules released by the Governor\u2019s Office. That trend continued on Monday and Tuesday of this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, he\u2019s in California while mill workers an hour south of Tallahassee wonder if they\u2019ll make their next mortgage payment. This apparent dereliction alone illustrates a possible rationale behind a \u201cresign-to-run\u201d law DeSantis repealed<\/a> just as he geared up for his presidential campaign. Ironically, DeSantis is spread too thin to handle the state, and yet he\u2019s running<\/a> in part on the idea that an executive leader should be energetic and powerful because of the demands of the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also something more sinister driving the lack of response from DeSantis: modern Republican philosophy. GOP politicians, the bulwarks of late-stage capitalism, cannot jump ship when a corporation rears its ugliest head. When controlling shareholders and executives prioritize yearly returns over human lives, Republicans at large find themselves in a bind. How can you criticize something about which you\u2019ve done nothing but facilitate?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s especially true for DeSantis, who\u2019s tried his very best to prevent corporations from considering anything other than raw profit when making decisions. Earlier this year he prioritized and signed<\/a> a landmark blow to environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG), something he dubbed as \u201ca worldwide effort to inject woke political ideology across the financial sector.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In truth, the businesses that attract ESG investors are those that take a more holistic approach to strategic decisions. That\u2019s an inexplicably terrifying prospect for DeSantis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what about actual corporate savagery? What about the reality that hundreds of Florida families have had their lives upended in the name of profit? To DeSantis and his contemporaries, that\u2019s just business as usual.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Florida Politics He launched a legislative blitz against Disney when it dared to weigh in on a law aiming to stamp out talk of LGBTQ issues in schools. He demanded the state try… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[6118],"class_list":["post-36362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-why-did-ron-desantis-go-limp-when-georgia-pacific-abandoned-a-small-florida-town"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}