Ron DeSantis first speech as a presidential contender was a dark and broody recitation of the forces he blames for ruining the country. Standing in front of a two-story American flag on a stage in Iowa, he rattled them off: cultural Marxism, woke ideology, Hunter Biden and, finally, corporate America.

There was a little business that you may have heard of in Florida, he said, named Disney. People told me, Listen, the medias coming after you, the left but if Disney weighs in, theyre the 800-pound gorilla. You better watch out, theyre going to steamroll you. Well, here I stand. Im not backing down one inch, he said to whoops and scattered applause.

We run the state of Florida. They do not run the state of Florida.

Its strange days in the ongoing realignment of the modern GOP. A majority of Republican voters have gone from admiring large companies and financial institutions to reviling them . Presidential candidates are crusading against giant corporations like Bud Light for the crime of acknowledging LGBTQ+ people, and DeSantis has declared open war on his states most valuable employer for daring to come to their defense. The Republican Party has a rich tradition of drafting off of hatred for minorities, but never before has it placed them on such a direct collision course with their other primary source of power, the American boardroom.

DeSantis has bet he can ride these shifting currents by styling himself as Americas most vicious culture warrior. His nebulous path to victory depends on peeling support away from the original fake populist, Donald Trump, despite having none of the former presidents charisma. And his fight with Disney offers a way for him to manufacture the illusion that he poses a serious threat to corporate America. For good measure, he has also picked an abstract fight over woke banking.

But an illusion is all it is. In interviews with Florida politicians, activists and members of the business community many of whom wont whisper a word against him on the record they describe how DeSantis has catered to special interests as ferociously as he has fought the culture wars. DeSantis wields near-dictatorial sway over his state, which he has used to grant special interests a breathtaking list of favors. He has helped them evade accountability, steamrolled regulations, funded their pet projects, and foisted bailouts and tax breaks onto ordinary taxpayers. Often he does so quite openly. One day after launching his 2024 presidential campaign in a live event on Twitter with its owner, Elon Musk, he signed a law relieving private space companies like SpaceX, another Musk company, from liability for accidentally killing its employees.

In exchange for how he has run the state, DeSantis raised more money for his 2022 reelection than any governor in U.S. history. The funds now power his nascent presidential campaign: Just a few weeks ago, he transferred $82.5 million from his gubernatorial campaign into his presidential super PAC. As a declared presidential contender, he continues to be a fundraising juggernaut, despite donors complaining he has all the personality of wet cardboard.

This doesnt mean businesses are getting everything they want it means theyre getting everything DeSantis wants them to have. Despite building his campaign around falsehoods about LGBTQ+ people and fearmongering of woke boogeymen, DeSantis has identified one true thing, which is how few countervailing forces there are against corporations and their political whims. Even in states where Republicans have gerrymandered popular opinion into irrelevance, big consumer-facing companies remain invested in public sentiment. North Carolinas anti-trans bathroom bill cost the state the NBA All-Star Game. Racist voting restrictions in Georgia did the same for the MLB All-Star Game and draft. DeSantis understands the threat this poses to his ascendance but remains reliant on corporate financial support, which is why his most meaningful attacks on corporate power have all involved reducing it relative to his own.

The word is out. If you want to get in good with this governor and his team, you have to pay up, said a Republican consultant in Florida who requested anonymity. The consultant added, You need to be very careful getting crosswise with the governor. He will not hesitate to remind you who really runs the state.

A Lock On The Legislature

The Florida 2023 legislative session doubled as the opening act of DeSantis presidential campaign. The House and Senate were under the control of a Republican supermajority, which in turn was under the thumb of DeSantis. Ive never seen a governor in my lifetime with this much absolute control of the agenda in Tallahassee as Ron DeSantis, one of his allies, super-lobbyist Brian Ballard, told the Tampa Bay Times .

Virtually every bill that passed somehow furthered his presidential ambitions, allowing him to enter the race without resigning as governor and to conceal his travel records from the public. He signed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors (it has since been blocked in federal court ), a six-week abortion ban , a law (likely unconstitutional) allowing non-unanimous juries to impose the death penalty , a vast expansion of private school vouchers and a bill to rename a road after the deceased blowhard Rush Limbaugh.

This is his blueprint for Americas revival, a spokesperson for his presidential campaign has said . DeSantis pitch is that he will Make America Florida, a place where he stomped the woke elites by taking on corporate power. In this environment, old-guard corporate Republicanism is not up to the task at hand, he wrote in his second biography, The Courage to Be Free.

At least that is DeSantis carefully crafted mythology. Insofar as you know DeSantis as the book- and drag-show-banning governor, its catching on. Other pieces of his legislative agenda particularly the many bills he signs without cameras present tell another story altogether.

This June, having accepted more than $2 million in donations from Florida car dealerships, he signed a law cementing their profits by banning direct-to-consumer sales of cars. The law contains a notable carve-out for Tesla, which relies heavily on direct sales and is another Musk property.

Another law he signed this month will exempt Minor League Baseball players from Floridas minimum wage law. When the bill was filed, minor leaguers were at the bargaining table, trying to raise minimum starting salaries above $20,000. Ive been covering Florida politics for more than 20 years now, and I have never seen a more mean-spirited piece of legislation than this, said Jason Garcia , an independent journalist and Floridas foremost chronicler of pay-to-play politics. Its the sort of bill Montgomery Burns would sponsor. The day after the bill was filed, Joe Ricketts, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs, gave $1 million to DeSantis 2022 reelection fund .

Some donors have enjoyed a striking return on investment. In May, he signed a bill discounting insurance for homeowners who install spray-foam insulation that was written by a chemical company struggling to sell spray-foam insulation. The company, Huntsman Corp., its CEO, Peter Huntsman, and his mother, Karen Huntsman, gave DeSantis campaign a combined $27,000 last year, and the company hired his ex-chief of staff and ex-economic development director to lobby for the bill.