WASHINGTON >> Is there something wrong with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis? What kind of politician declares war against Mickey Mouse and Tinker Bell? Does he have some sort of problem with impulse control?

I mean, seriously, what kind of governor threatens the revenue of a company that is his state’s biggest private employer, No. 1 corporate taxpayer and most popular tourist attraction? For that matter, what kind of self-proclaimed conservative Republican believes a governor has the right to punish a corporation for publicly disagreeing with his policies?

The battle DeSantis has chosen to wage against Walt Disney World always seemed petty and ill-advised. It now looks obsessive and weird — and I fear it tells us something alarming about the man who is running second in the polls, behind Donald Trump, for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

This all started in March 2022, when DeSantis signed into law legislation known as the “don’t say gay” bill banning discussion of LGBTQ issues in Florida’s public schools. Initially, the law affected classrooms up to the third grade; this week, however, it was expanded to cover all grades through high school.

Disney executives heard loud complaints from Disney World employees — about 75,000 people work at the complex — who said the company should have used its influence to try to kill the bill. In response, Disney issued a statement saying that the legislation “should never have passed and should never have been signed into law.” The company said it was “dedicated to standing up for the rights and safety of LGBTQ+ members of the Disney family.”

That should have been the end of it. Disney had made its views known. DeSantis had his new law, and he was free to move on to his next performative exercise in building up, then knocking down, the straw man he calls “wokeness.”

But no. DeSantis began taking steps to punish Disney for daring to raise its voice. Using the state legislature, he moved to take away Disney’s near-total control over the roughly 40 square miles on which the Disney World complex of theme parks and hotels is located. Under terms of an agreement from the 1960s, Disney has its own taxing district — almost equivalent to having its own county — and is responsible for policing, firefighting, road maintenance and other government-like duties within its, well, kingdom.

DeSantis had a tough, “anti-woke” oversight board all set to take charge of the special district and show Disney who’s boss — only to learn, late last month, that the Disney-friendly outgoing board had signed an agreement stripping the new board of its power and allowing Disney to continue operating with near-total autonomy for the foreseeable future.

Once again, DeSantis had the opportunity to declare victory and walk away. He hadn’t lost anything. The status quo was being preserved.

But no. DeSantis is pushing Florida’s legislature to reverse Disney’s clever maneuver. And this week he talked about punishing the company — the state’s biggest employer, mind you — by developing the land around the Disney World complex in ways that would siphon off or repel paying customers. “Maybe try to do more amusement parks,” he said at a news conference. “Someone even said, like, maybe you need another state prison.”

All in all, it has not been a good week for DeSantis. He came to Washington on what was billed as a charm offensive. But he was strikingly charmless, and he failed to stop the drip-drip-drip of Republican members of Congress from his home state.

DeSantis likes to portray himself as the ultimate fighter; indeed, a PAC supporting his still-undeclared candidacy is titled Never Back Down. But a politician who doesn’t know when to fight and when to stand down can never be trusted with the powers of the presidency. Disney doesn’t have nuclear weapons; China and Russia do.

“This is all so unnecessary, a political STUNT!” Trump posted Tuesday about DeSantis’s fight with Disney. So between the two of them, Trump sounds more reasonable? Good Lord.