Wisconsin governor: Francesca Hong’s weird Thanksgiving take highlights everything that’s wrong with the left.
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By all objective measures, Francesca Hong, the Democratic Socialists of America–endorsed candidate for Wisconsin’s governor’s office and a state Assembly representative, has run a very successful campaign.* Her sustained double-digit polling lead has scared off other challengers, sparking a deeply cynical rebuke from the Democratic Party’s moderate flank, which has searched far and wide to prop up anyone who could challenge Hong in the waning days of the primary. It hasn’t worked. Hong remains broadly popular among Democrats, a feat that can be best ascribed to—you guessed it—her backing of popular policies that are nonetheless regarded tepidly, at best, by the withering liberal elite. Hong supports the Medicare for All Act, universal childcare, and a sane approach to America’s Israel policy. She wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and legalize cannabis. She thinks school lunches should be free and wants to expand union membership. In fact, the only area where Hong is radically out of step with the greater American polity is on the subject of Thanksgiving, and whether the holiday should be abolished, which is something she really ought to stop talking about.
Here is the context: In 2020, during the height of the civil unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd, Hong—who was then running for the Wisconsin Assembly—posted a tweet that, characteristic of the era, was simultaneously exasperating and well meaning. The topic was Thanksgiving, and whether Americans should congregate with their families around unventilated dinner tables in the middle of a plague. Hong had this to say about the matter:
“Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621,” she wrote. “If it takes a worldwide pandemic to realize that we should stop celebrating colonialism and the original superspreader event that killed Indigenous folx and women, so be it.”
I am not here to debate the merits of Hong’s assertion, mostly because I don’t really possess the hoity-toity intellectual hardware to do so. (I have a bachelor’s degree in journalism and graduated from high school with a 2.4 GPA.) Should Thanksgiving be pruned from the calendar to make up for the grievous wounds inflicted by empire and genocide? I don’t know, maybe? But that is a topic best interrogated in American studies programs on leafy liberal arts campuses rather than in the public scrutiny of big-ticket elections. Years have turned over since the social recoil of 2020. The vibe shifted, then shifted again. We are in the aftermath of a brutal counterrevolution to the transient gains of the Woke Moment, and therefore, every Democrat currently running for office is getting their feet held to the fire for the subversive posts they made while lost in the sauce. This is how Hong found herself last night on CNN, where Kaitlan Collins once again asked her if she thought Thanksgiving should be canceled. Did she back off on a premise that is dead on arrival in the current cultural firmament? While running to govern a state that Biden won by only 20,000 votes? No, she went with this:
I’m a chef, and one of the first meals that I made for the community when I was 16 was a Thanksgiving meal. But Thanksgiving is also a time that’s incredibly painful for many people in our communities. And so, I think, there I wanted to make sure that people understood that there are multiple views, but views can evolve. And the position that I’m running for right now, and I think my background as a chef will actually help me become a better governor that’s able to bring more people to the table.
Hong is tempering herself here. You can find a ho-hum plea for unity in her answer, as well as a guarded concession that Thanksgiving is a holiday that the vast majority of Americans cherish. But for my money, there is too much tedious, mealymouthed chaff obscuring what should be her larger point. So let me make this clear to all of the DSA-backed candidates making waves in congressional and gubernatorial races this cycle (which, for my money, is one of the most exciting things to happen in politics during my lifetime). When sitting down for an interview with a cable-news pundit or a taciturn newspaper journalist, if they ask if you still believe in the tiresome, unpopular, and ultimately peripheral positions you took in the white heat of 2020, you can just say no. One word: no. That’s it! That’s all you need to do. If you are feeling generous, you can fill it out with some extra context. Perhaps “Not anymore” or “No, and here’s why.” But really, just “No” suffices. This is especially useful when deployed to shut down a line of questioning that is completely ancillary to your actual platform—inquiries designed to reveal oneself as a pinko loony, rather than someone fluent in the material causes that have undergirded a successful campaign and reinvigorated the DSA as a legitimate organizational force. “No, I don’t think Thanksgiving should be abolished, but let me tell you more about how groceries should be cheaper.” Done!
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I wonder if Hong is worried that flip-flopping on the Thanksgiving issue might make her appear capricious and mercenary in the eyes of self-hating moderates. Maybe she thinks she needs to lay out a strained justification for her circa-2020 comments in order to demonstrate an inner conviction to the public. This might sound harsh, but I think that logic is, flatly, stupid. If there is one lesson to be gleaned from the Trump era, it is that anyone can do, or say, anything they want in the name of political convenience—with zero shame and total panache—and nobody will hold it against you, or, at any rate, they’ll forget about it in a few days. Similar principles apply to concerns Hong might have about her leftward supporters. Will they be turned off if she suddenly comes out as pro-Thanksgiving? I don’t think so. You know why? Zohran Mamdani rode a cloud of good feelings to the New York mayoralty, and along the way he giddily disavowed all of the onerous tweets he made during the summer of protest. Mamdani said he no longer believed in defunding the police, and he was still elected with a mandate while retaining absolute primacy in the Democratic Socialist hierarchy. That is the power of no, and also a few Instagram photos of a bountiful Thanksgiving feast at Gracie Mansion.
To reiterate this one more time: Hong is a legitimately exciting candidate. She has established herself as the front-runner of a crowded primary, and that takes real acumen and skill. Furthermore, you have to hope that some of this irksome culture-war stuff—trans participation in sports, campus protests, certain federal holidays with complicated histories—won’t be as salient in the minds of swing voters this November, when more pressing concerns, like the punitive cost of living, are breaking our collective spirit. In that sense, Hong is on the right side of just about everything, and that might be more than enough to carry her to victory. Just save the Thanksgiving debate for its natural habitat—bars, brunches, and long, wine-soaked arguments with your uncle right before pie is served.
Correction, Aug. 4, 2026: This article originally misstated that Hong is the Madison mayor.
