MEGHAN MCCAIN: Go woke, go broke – AND go jobless! Disney boss is out

MEGHAN MCCAIN: Go woke, go broke — AND go jobless! Disney’s boss is looking for a new gig… because he put progressive activist quackery before turning a buck. Big mistake!

Hey, corporate America. Pick a lane!

You can be businessmen or activists; but you can’t be both.

Unceremoniously ousted Disney CEO Bob Chapek just learned that lesson the hard way.

Chapek, tapped to run Disney less than 3 years ago, is being replaced by his own predecessor. The legendary Bob Iger is back to right the ship.

Now, I’m no business reporter, but it doesn’t take a financial genius to see that Chapek’s strategy wasn’t adding up.

The stock is down 40% this year. Disney’s streaming service, Disney+, ironically keeps adding subscribers and losing money – to the tune of $1.5 billion a quarter. And the company is freezing hiring, cutting spending, and likely laying people off.

So, what was Chapek doing while the House of Mouse crumbled?

He was backing into fights with Republican governors and alienating his customers.

Chapek got the most public attention during his very short tenure for his very public feud with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over a parental right’s law, deemed the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill by unhinged critics.

In reality, the law banned the classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools for kindergarten through third grade. Sounds reasonable, right?

Well, initially, Chapek thought so too — until he decided to play activist.

Chapek went from trying to avoid the left-wing outrage over the law to fully and completely embracing it.

So, what was Chapek (above, right) doing while the House of Mouse crumbled? He was backing into fights with Republican governors and alienating his customers. 

Chapek (left), tapped to run Disney less than 3 years ago, is being replaced by his own predecessor. The legendary Bob Iger (right) is back to right the ship. (Above) Chapek and Iger on CNBC on February 25, 2020

He told shareholders at an annual meeting that the company had advocated against the bill in secret. Then he pledged to work to repeal the law and stoked the narrative that it threatened the lives of LGBTQ+ people.

DeSantis responded, saying Disney had ‘crossed the line.’ He vowed to fight back, ‘when people are threatening our parents and threatening our kids.’ And the Florida legislature stripped Disney of its ‘independent special district,’ which essentially amounts to a massive tax break.

How ironic that seven months later, DeSantis has just been re-elected by the largest margin for any Florida governor in almost 40 years and Chapek is looking for a new job. It turns out Bob should have stuck to the dollar and cents and left the politics to the politicians.

Of course, Chapek’s far from the first executive to fall victim to the woke delusion. They seem to think that if they appease the woke mob and win over the activist class, the shareholders will overlook their inadequacies. But business leaders are picked to turn a profit, not play favorites.

And as America’s economy is teetering, the stock market plunging and interest rates rising, investors want to know that their money is – well – making them more money.

Funny how a recession sharpens the mind. Chapek tried to win a popularity contest when he should have been boosting the bottom line.

We’ve seen this misunderstanding cripple business leaders across the board.

Jeff Zucker, the former president of CNN, was fired after instituting an ‘anti-Trump’ mandate at his news network. While that short-sighted strategy worked while Trump was in office it predictably flopped when Biden became president.

Today, ‘the most trusted name in news’ is in the midst of an identity crisis after getting rid of left-wing blowhards, like Brian Stelter and Jeffrey Toobin, and wasting an absolutely insane $300 million dollars on its streaming service just to shut it down within weeks of launching.

It also didn’t help that Zucker’s hand-picked prime time news anchor, Chris Cuomo, was exposed for colluding with his disgraced brother, ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo, to help him navigate a sex abuse scandal and a bungled COVID pandemic response.

Audiences want news networks to deliver the news and not propaganda – who knew?

Chapek went from trying to avoid the left-wing outrage over the law to fully and completely embracing it. (Above) Walt Disney employees and demonstrators during a rally against the Florida’s parental right’s bill in Glendale, California

The stock is down 40% this year. Disney’s streaming service, Disney+, ironically keeps adding subscribers and losing money – to the tune of $1.5 billion a quarter. And the company is freezing hiring, cutting spending, and likely laying people off.

At least Fox News is in a league of its own appealing to a right-of-center audience. CNN was just preaching to the choir – a very, very small choir.

Apparently, someone also told MSNBC, who recently fired another one of the most divisive names in all of cable news, host Tiffany Cross. We’ll see if NBC News still has patience for the leadership there.

And finally, there’s Twitter. The social media platform wallowed in financial mediocrity since it launched in 2006. It never managed to realize its potential and create any reasonable return for investors. Instead, the folks running Twitter seemed content to be a left-wing megaphone and a censor of conservative opinions.

Now Elon Musk is in the charge, firing staff and creating havoc with little concern for the judgement of the left-wing elite. Whether or not he can pull it off remains to be seen. But at least he knows what matters.

Real business leaders innovate, unleash creativity, and find a way to make it all work.

You can spout off all of the activist quackery you like – but if you don’t deliver a profit at the end of the day, you’re out.

That’s how America works baby! And it’s worked well so far.

Chapek’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ crusade was never a profile in courage – more like cowardice. He didn’t want this fight, he was pushed into it by a few vocal, woke employees and a biased media rooting them on.

I’m sure he won over a lot of fans at dinner parties. But that doesn’t cut it. Virtue signaling is not a business strategy.

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