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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........

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