For the overwhelming majority of my life the Walt Disney company has stood as an American icon, like Mount Rushmore or the Statue of Liberty. At some point not too long ago that all changed, radically. Disney, like so many of our institutions and financial ventures, became infected with the woke virus, and shambled along the road to the progressive promised land like a horror movie zombie. The only difference is that the repurposed Disney hungers for our children, not brains.

The entire strategy of the Left infiltrating institutions is to herd the rest of us into a socialist utopia. The stagnation and fall of the Soviet Union finally woke the arrogant intelligentsia up to the fact that the masses weren’t going to buy their snake oil willingly. We’re just too ignorant and selfish to know what’s best for us. An attitude which squares nicely with their natural inclination to meddle in the lives of others anyway. So, the long march through the institutions was embarked upon. If we wouldn’t stride down the primrose path to utopia, they’d drive us there like cattle instead.

Disney is simply one offensive on the entertainment front of the culture war. BlackRock seeks to make it impossible to be employed without bowing to the DEI idol. The lords of higher education require you to indenture your future earnings for the doubtful benefit of a fill-in-the-aggrieved-minority-here studies degree. And the monolithic media is tasked with making sure everyone parrots the same litany, with no dissent allowed.

So far, events had run pretty much according to the grand plan. Then, a funny thing happened on the way to utopia. We, the people, suddenly and inexplicably stopped giving a hoot about key components of what our betters counted on to keep us distracted from the slowly boiling water. We went way off script to elect Donald Trump president. We aren’t eternally grateful to the benevolent government for saving us during the pandemic. There is widespread and growing suspicion, even anger, at the cynical incompetence of government-run education.

These developments and others are both alarming and puzzling to our betters. They had assumed if they simply wormed their way into the driver seats of out trusted institutions, the people could be steered along the proper path. This is because hierarchical, top-down bureaucracies are the preferred way of life among leftists. It fits their worldview and their paternalistic, condescending attitude towards the common man. And, let’s be honest. An institution is just a bureaucracy with better marketing.

The trouble with all nefarious schemes for the perfect society is that the people are required to play a somewhat willing part in their own enslavement. That might be managed in the heat of a chaotic, revolutionary moment, or if the masters have access to enough of other people’s money to lull the public with largess as freedoms are stealthily sliced away. But, the leftist saviors of humanity are not really smarter than the rest of us. At least not that much smarter, at the most. Fooled the people can be, for a time. Slumber we might, while our chains are forged. When we inevitably awaken, no chains can hold us.

The Left craftily calculated that they could use our beloved institutions against us. In their view, all things are simply tools for the advancement of the agenda. Why not repurpose education for indoctrination, commerce for control, entertainment for reprogramming? Well, in all candor, our institutions, beloved or not, are nothing more than tools. Now they are broken tools, after being employed in a manner never intended. There are only two options for a broken tool, mend it or cast it away.

DEI is quickly becoming a pariah term in the world of investing. The people have spoken, to Bud Light, to Target, to NASCAR, to the NFL, and others. We will see if they listen. Citizens are voting with their feet, loading up U-Hauls to flee California, Oregon, New York, and Illinois. The value of university degrees which aren’t STEM-related is dissipating like the morning dew. Incensed parents are wearily retaking school boards, to shoulder a task thought safely in competent hands. The alphabet agencies are currently sprouting whistleblowers like flowers in spring, telling tales of the two tiers of “justice.” Each institution will be reformed or written off, depending upon degree of damage and cost of repair.

Which brings us back around to the propaganda mill that was once Disney. The Left in general, and the woke movement in particular, is often likened to a virus, because they invade and take over all they touch. The sentimental attachment to the institution hijacked is counted on for the power the Left is to wield. Frankly, we the people can’t afford nonsense like that.

I, for one, have fond memories of decades upon decades of uplifting, heartwarming, beautiful, entertaining movies and shows to come out of Disney studios. My family and I were entranced by the real-world magic in the air of the Disney parks we visited. That’s all gone now. It’s like a formerly pristine meadow, filled with trash and lurid billboards for adult video stores. The time has come to fix Disney, or walk away.

The value of Disney was one hundred years of inspirational stories, skillfully and lovingly told. The thugs who hold that heritage hostage think we will pay their ransom. We no longer give a hoot about how they torture Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker, Buzz Lightyear, Ariel, or even Mickey Mouse. Those are simply ephemeral images flashed upon a screen. They just don’t understand that the true legacy of Walt Disney is in our hearts, not imprisoned in a legal fortress of IP contracts. We the people won’t play along and finance their madness anymore. And if that means the special breed of magic which was once Disney dies with us, then so be it.

Image: Tiffany Smith, PxFuel