Problem At Disney Is About Culture, Not The CEO

Disney announced that Bob Iger is stepping down and handing the reins to his handpicked successor Josh D’Amaro. Corporate press releases will frame this as a fresh chapter, a reset, or a moment of renewal. Frustrated investors optimistically hope change is coming.

Americans should not be fooled. Disney can reshuffle executives all it wants. The ideological DNA of the company remains unchanged.

Leadership changes do not undo a corporate culture that has spent years prioritizing political activism over shareholder value created by storytelling and the trust of families who once viewed Disney as a positive source of entertainment.

The longer-term picture is even more damning.

From Disney’s all-time high of $197.26 on March 8, 2021, through Feb. 2, 2026, almost five years, Disney shares have under-performed the S&P 500. Disney did not merely underperform. It has catastrophically lagged both the broader market and its sector.

Yet instead of reflection, Disney doubled down on its woke anti-parent culture, entrenching the very ideology that alienated families, drove away conservative investors, and punished shareholders, all while insisting the problem was everyone else.

Disney’s problem was never just Bob Iger. It is an entrenched worldview that treats progressive social engineering as a core business function.

For years, Disney executives openly bragged about injecting ideology into children’s content. Senior creative leaders admitted they were inserting “queerness” wherever possible, regardless of story relevance or audience age. Others described deliberate efforts to sidestep parental concerns in favor of advancing political narratives.

This was not accidental. It was institutional.

Disney adopted internal diversity, equity, and inclusion quotas that directly influenced hiring, promotion, and creative decision making. Merit became secondary to identity metrics. Creative risk taking was replaced by ideological box checking. Writers and producers quickly learned which messages were rewarded and which ones were career limiting.

At the same time, Disney made itself an active participant in America’s culture wars.

The company publicly opposed Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, choosing to side with progressive advocacy groups rather than remain neutral. That decision alienated millions of parents who simply wanted age-appropriate education for their children and marked a turning point for investors who had long tolerated Disney’s cultural drift.

The market reaction was swift and unforgiving.

From the day before then-CEO Bob Chapek inserted Disney into the political fight by opposing Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ legislation, until, the day before Disney announced Bob Iger’s return (3/8/22 – 11/18/22), Disney stock fell approximately -30%. Over that same period, the S&P 500 declined just -4%. Investors did not imagine Disney’s political radicalization. One would think a break with the past was warranted, but instead the previous ideologically captured CEO returned.

Films and television shows increasingly centered lectures instead of escapism. Longstanding franchises were repurposed to deliver social messaging rather than timeless stories. Box office performance suffered. Streaming losses mounted. Theme park attendance stagnated. Share prices continued to lag.

None of this happened because audiences suddenly became intolerant or reactionary. It happened because consumers do not like being preached to, especially by a corporation built on nostalgia, imagination, and childhood magic.

Disney also missed a critical opportunity to bring in outside leadership focused on meritocracy and cultural reform. Rather than dismantle its corrosive, embedded DEI bureaucracy, the board chose continuity. That decision has hurt shareholders, and the market’s reaction confirms it.

The return of Bob Iger did not reverse Disney’s decline because it did not address the underlying problem. Iger helped build the very culture that now weighs the company down. Promoting an insider was never going to dismantle an ideological system designed to reward conformity and punish dissent.

That reality became clear once again when Disney shares fell roughly 7 percent after reports emerged on Jan. 31 that Iger may soon step aside. Investors understood that another internal shuffle would not deliver real change.

Corporate culture does not change when the same board, the same human resources departments, the same activist consultants, and the same creative gatekeepers remain in place. A successor trained and elevated inside the same system will protect that system.

Disney’s internal incentives still reward political conformity. Dissenting voices inside the company remain chilled. Creative professionals who want to focus on story, humor, and universal themes know better than to challenge the ideological orthodoxy.

If Disney were serious about reform, it would publicly recommit to political neutrality. It would dismantle DEI quotas and restore merit-based decision making. It would stop using children’s entertainment as a vehicle for adult political debates. It would acknowledge the families and investors it dismissed for daring to object.

None of that is happening.

Instead, Disney hopes a new face will distract from an old problem. It is a familiar strategy among legacy corporations that believe branding tweaks can substitute for cultural accountability.

Investors are not buying it. Parents are voting with their wallets. Viewers are choosing alternatives that offer entertainment without ideological conditioning.

Disney once understood that its power came from unifying generations, not dividing them. Until it relearns that lesson, no leadership shuffle will save it.

The magic is not broken because of who sits in the corner office. It is broken because Disney forgot who it serves.

Bill Flaig is the CEO and Co-Founder, and Tom Carter is the President and Co-Founder of The American Conservatives Values ETF (ACVF), a publicly traded ETF on NYSE with over $140 in AUM. Learn more: https://investconservative.com/

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.