So the Governor of the State of Florida, Ron DeSantis, is taking on the mighty Disney Corporation, ending the special tax deal and self governing local authority status the company has enjoyed since 1967 - the sweetheart deal that many credit with making Disneyworld in Orlando the most visited theme park in the US and the epicentre of a $75 billion a year tourism industry.
The proximate cause of this move by Florida lawmakers is Disney's chief Executive speaking out against the so-called "don't say gay" bill Governor DeSantis signed into law after several months of controversy.
A law opposed by the Disney corporation, which sided with Florida-based staff who protested the bill.
But the most important thing to know about this tale is that there are elections on in November.
Governor DeSantis is seeking another term, and there are midterm elections for the Congress in Washington DC, in which his republican party are seeking to take back control of the Federal legislature.
What's the connection between those elections and open conflict with one of the biggest, best known and most respected companies in the US? Mobilising voters, certainly. And according to some critics, something much more cynical as well.
On the surface it looks strange - the Republican party going after the State’s biggest employer, and the attraction that a whole tourism infrastructure has been built around.
Without Disneyworld, Orange County near Orlando would probably still be best known for growing the raw ingredient for orange juice.
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The special deal Disney got, included not just a tax break but the right to run things on the 100 square kilometres it owns pretty much the way it wants.
In return it provides the services to the area - the police, the fire department, waste water treatment, road building and maintenance - all run by Disney through the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the scheme that Florida lawmakers voted to end on Thursday night.
And those services don't come cheap - even Disney had to borrow to fund them: the Development District is reported to have more than $1 billion of debt that will cease to be Disney's problem once the transfer of status takes place.
Instead the cost of servicing this debt will almost certainly fall on the local property taxpayers of Orange county.
The county’s head of tax collection, Scott Randolph, said on Twitter that Disney pays Reedy Creek $105 million a year to provide local authority services.
"If Reedy Creek goes away, the $105 million it collects to operate services goes away," he said. "That doesn't just transfer to Orange County because it's an independent taxing district. However, Orange County then inherits all debt and obligations with no extra funds."
That would have the effect of stuffing an extra 20% on the average taxpayers' bills to the county. Ouch.
But then Orange County has voted Democrat at every presidential election since 2000. At the last Presidential election, it voted just over 60% Democrat. It's not like the good folks of Orange County were going to vote in big numbers for Governor DeSantis in his re-election bid in November. Losing a few votes there may be the way to gain votes elsewhere.
Governor DeSantis' so called "Don't say Gay" law - which bans discussion of sexuality issues in the classroom for children aged under eight, seems to be rather popular with the parents of young schoolchildren, according to opinion polls.
These 30-somethings can become solid voters - if they are mobilised and corralled into party camps by issues that connect with them: what is taught or not taught in the classroom to their children has been identified as a good way of connecting and mobilising.
Across the US, school boards have become the latest battleground in the so-called culture wars - the use of hot-button issues to corral voters into liberal or conservative causes, with the aim of rounding up a bigger group and thereby winning elections.
Rather than taking the long march, school board by school board, Ron DeSantis has hit what he hopes will be a home run by mobilising potential voters across the whole state behind his stance on the teaching of sexuality in schools.
By standing up to Disney Corporation - a major donor to the Republican Party - he can appear tough, and not in hock to corporate America. Useful attributes when facing the voters in November. They certainly know his name in Florida - and beyond.
And that too is part of the play here.
Mr DeSantis is - for the moment at least - widely spoken of as the most likely challenger to Donald Trump to be the Republican Party candidate for the 2024 Presidential election. The Disney affair has certainly raised his profile right across the US and beyond.
As for Disney itself, observers note that the measures do not come into effect until the middle of 2023 - time to find an "off ramp" for the State and the Corporation.
But none of that is the cynical move that some observers detect.
In the same week that Governor DeSantis signed SB-4C, the legislation that dismantled the Reedy Creek Improvement District, he also signed SB-2C, legislation that redraws the electoral map of Florida, based on the results of the 2020 Census.
The art, or course, is in how the maps are redrawn.
The bill Governor DeSantis signed into law this week will likely result in the Republicans winning 20 of Florida’s 28 Congressional seats, a gain of four seats.
The re-districting (as it is called in the US) would also see changes to two districts in Jacksonville and Orlando that were deliberately drawn to ensure Florida’s African-American voters would have representation from their community.
As a result of the changes, there are likely to be fewer African-Americans returned to Congress by Florida in November, as well as fewer Democrats.
These are changes that could have national consequences in the shift of the balance of power in November's congressional election, and point the way to a further sharpening of the battle lines in 2024.
But most people are not talking about that: they are talking about Disney’s special status and the "Don't say Gay" act.
Those of a cynical disposition - including many African-American political activists - think that's deliberate, that the Mickey Mouse politics is a smokescreen for a good old Gerrymander that bolsters Ron DeSantis both in his own state and on the national stage.
