If You Think Bob Iger Will Make Disney Better, I've Got Sour News for You

There are few companies that deserve more contempt than Disney. It’s an organization that built itself on wonder and magic, gifting children warm memories of adventures, princesses, and memorable stories but was overtaken by unapologetic activists bent on making the company a mouthpiece for their ideologies.

Soon, the magic kingdom was given over to lesser people, and instead of releasing products that merged creativity and joy, they wheeled out remakes, reboots, and unimaginative tripe that followed the demands of radical activists and Chinese dictators. You can’t even get on Disney+ and watch old classics without Disney giving you a guilt trip about it first.

While many people have opinions on where Disney began to sink, I can tell you that it didn’t start with outgoing CEO Bob Chapek.

(READ: Disney Remakes ‘What About Bob’ in Real Life, Replaces CEO Chapek With Predecessor Iger)

Chapek is largely blamed for Disney’s descent into wokeness. To be sure, he oversaw the company when it tried to take on Ron DeSantis and the Republicans in Florida over the parental rights bill, costing the company its special tax privileges. He was the head of the company while Kathleen Kennedy took Star Wars from a celebrated and revered brand and turned it into a politicized laughing stock. He was on the throne while the MCU became the M-She-U and turned a thriving superhero universe into a ridiculous propaganda factory for social justice politics.

(READ: Marvel Went from a ‘Take It or Leave It’ Brand to ‘Leave It’ With ‘Wakanda Forever’)

But while Chapek kept the Disney empire in flames by constantly pouring gasoline on it, he didn’t start the fire. The man responsible for that is the person now taking over for Chapek, Bob Iger, Disney’s former CEO.

When it was announced that Chapek was stepping down and Iger returning, many people began singing the ol’ “get woke, go broke” refrain. To be sure, there’s some truth to that. Disney’s stock plunged under Chapek’s tenure, an unforgivable sin to any corporation. Every move he made weakened the company further and soon, Disney products were no longer something many people just went to see without thinking about it. They question the quality and content.

In fact, more people than ever consume Disney products by watching reviews like the ones presented by the Critical Drinker.

But it was Iger that set this game plan for the company. Chapek was just the stooge that took the football and ran with it after Iger handed it off to him.

For starters, Iger has deep connections with China. As Fox News reported, Iger opened the doors for China’s control over the company. Iger began courting China in 2010 when he went on an apology tour with then-CEO Michael Eisner over the film Kundun, a biography of the Dalai Lama. From there he began trying to open theme parks in Shanghai:

In June 2016, Disney opened the Shanghai Disneyland theme park, giving the Chinese government a 57% ownership stake in the resort and a 30% share in the Disney management company that runs the property.

Iger told CNBC after the opening that he had been working on developing a relationship with China for 17 years, and that he had “engaged with three presidents and a few premiers and a number of vice-premiers and a number of party secretaries and five or six mayors of Shanghai.”

“I know from the engagement that I’ve had with numerous people over time, including President Xi Jinping, that they are very supportive of what we are doing here and what we have done here,” Iger said, adding that Disney has “great Chinese partners” and “the approval of the government.”

Disney also started working with Beijing’s Ministry of Culture, and one month after Shanghai Disneyland opened, Disney released the nature film “Born in China” in the Communist country.

Iger has never addressed the human rights abuses being suffered in China, especially the Uyghur Muslims and the concentration camps they’re kept in.

However, he has no problem weighing in on matters in America. When Georgia’s heartbeat bill passed, Iger said that Disney would likely no longer film there. Iger also resigned from President Donald Trump’s business advisory council after he withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords. Iger also began following the protocols of woke culture after promising to begin hiring people based on race and sex in order to diversify Disney, including within its executive ranks.

If you’re betting that Iger will turn the company around, then rest assured, he will not. While I’m willing to be pleasantly surprised, Iger will likely do whatever it takes to get Disney’s ESG score higher, which means a lot more leftist nonsense is in store for the house that Walt built.

Iger is not the man to lead Disney, and all clues point to him making its problems even worse.