Soarin’ Across An Imperfect Union

The latest installment of Todd Martens’s newsletter for The Los Angeles Times is about Disney promoting some of the stuff it’s planning for the upcoming July 4th holiday, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. It raises an interesting question, one which might not occur to many theme park enthusiasts: “Are you somehow not aware of what the USA is like in 2026, Disney?” It’s the kind of idea that you don’t normally hear discussed by theme park enthusiasts, who are going to focus on the thing itself, without touching on what the thing means in a larger context. As someone who considers himself a theme park enthusiast, I totally get the appeal. It’s the same appeal as the parks themselves: it’s a bubble. It’s so much easier and definitely cheaper to watch videos of people going to parks than actually going yourself. And it’s just as reassuring to feel that you’re watching something that almost certainly won’t have the real world creeping in. People try to…