Old 'Cancel Thanksgiving' Tweet Resurfaces as Francesca Hong Leads Wisconsin Democratic Governor Primary

A November 2020 tweet from Wisconsin state Rep. Francesca Hong is circulating online again, days before the state's August 11 Democratic gubernatorial primary. The post, since deleted, read: "Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621," and went on to call the holiday "the original superspreader event that killed indigenous folx and women," referencing the spread of smallpox among Native American populations after European colonization.

Hong, a Madison Democrat and self-described democratic socialist, is now the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. That became clearer on Thursday, July 30, when former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes dropped out of the race. "Last night I had a very difficult conversation with staff," Barnes said in a video posted to X. "We're incredibly proud of all the things that we've accomplished and all the resources that we have raised to spread our message. But it's become very clear who our nominee is going to be."

That leaves Hong facing Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who has the endorsement of outgoing Gov. Tony Evers, as her main remaining rival heading into the primary.

What the tweet actually said

The full 2020 post argued that a pandemic should force a reckoning with how Americans remember Thanksgiving's origins, tying the holiday to the spread of disease among indigenous populations following colonization. It's a viewpoint that echoes debates historians and Native American advocacy groups have had for decades about the holiday's origin story, though Hong's framing, calling for the holiday's cancellation and using the phrase "indigenous folx," was blunt enough to draw sustained mockery once it resurfaced this week.

Conservative podcaster Stephen Miller flagged the post on X, quoting the word "folx" back at her, a term some progressives use as a gender-inclusive alternative to "folks." Other commentators, including former White House Principal Deputy Communications Director Alex Pfeiffer and Washington Free Beacon investigative reporter Chuck Ross, piled on, according to the New York Post and Breitbart.

A separate 2019 tweet also resurfaced this week, in which Hong described feeling anxious eating at a Culver's restaurant in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, surrounded by what she called "old white people who didnt think we spoke english." Critics, including Twitchy and Pacific Pundit, seized on both posts as evidence Hong is out of step with Wisconsin's electorate.

The broader platform, not just old tweets

The resurfaced posts are getting attention now because Hong is no longer a fringe candidate. She has built her campaign explicitly around her socialist record, backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, and is running on policies including race-based grants for social workers, publicly funded grocery stores, and a state-run bank, according to Breitbart. She has drawn comparisons to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, another self-identified democratic socialist who has generated national attention.

Breitbart also reported that Hong has ducked direct questions on abolishing police departments and called it "cowardly" for hospitals to stop providing sex-change procedures to minors, positions that will likely draw scrutiny well beyond the resurfaced Thanksgiving post if she wins the nomination.

A 2020 tweet criticizing the way America has historically told the Thanksgiving story isn't the same as literally trying to ban a national holiday. Plenty of historians and Native American groups have made similar arguments about colonization and disease going back years, and nothing in the record suggests Hong has pursued any legislative effort to cancel Thanksgiving as governor. The criticism landing hardest isn't the historical argument itself, it's the tone, the timing (during a pandemic that had nothing to do with 1621), and the political liability of a candidate for statewide office in a purple state having called for eliminating a widely beloved holiday.

No source indicates Hong has responded publicly to the resurfaced posts as of this writing, and none of the four sources reviewed cite a statement from her campaign addressing either tweet.

What happens next

Wisconsin Democrats vote in their primary on August 11. Hong currently holds a polling lead in a field now narrowed by Barnes's exit, facing Crowley as her chief rival. Whoever wins will face the Republican nominee in November in a state that's been a perennial presidential battleground and where Evers, the current governor, chose not to seek reelection.

The unresolved question is whether old social media posts from 2019 and 2020, resurfaced now in a heated primary, meaningfully shift Democratic primary voters who may care more about Hong's current policy platform than a five-year-old tweet. That will become clearer once primary results are certified after August 11.