Francesca Hong, a socialist Democrat campaigning for the position of Wisconsin governor, previously criticized Thanksgiving as a celebration of colonialism. However, she now claims it is her favorite holiday.
Hong retracted her earlier stance from a November 2021 post advocating for the cancellation of Thanksgiving during an interview on Politico’s Playbook podcast on Wednesday.
“My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving,” Hong remarked. “Yup. I don’t want to cancel it, I actually love it.”
She shared with host Irie Senter that Thanksgiving is a significant occasion for her family, though she views holidays generally with some skepticism.
During the peak of the Covid pandemic in November 2021, Hong had released a strong statement on her X account calling to “cancel Thanksgiving” and argued it should have been abandoned in 1621.
In her since-deleted post, she expressed, “If it takes a worldwide pandemic for us to realize we should stop celebrating colonialism and the original superspreader event that killed indigenous folx [sic] and women, so be it,” referring to the smallpox epidemic that devastated many indigenous communities.
Hong’s views on Thanksgiving are not isolated, as she has also criticized several other U.S. holidays on social media, including Valentine’s Day, the Fourth of July, Christmas, Halloween, and Mother’s and Father’s days.
Her unusual reversal was highlighted following her CNN interview on Monday, where she gave a 46-second, unclear response to host Kaitlan Collins when asked if she still believes Thanksgiving should be canceled.
Despite a direct question, Hong did not provide a straightforward “yes” or “no” answer.
“I’m a chef, and one of the first meals that I made that was for the community when I was 16 was a Thanksgiving meal,” she said to Collins.
“I always think my hospitality background and owning a restaurant for 7-8 years, that bringing folks around the table to share conversation and build community is always a good thing. But Thanksgiving is also a time that’s incredibly painful for many people in our communities. So I think there I wanted to make sure people understood there are multiple views, but views can evolve.”
“And the position 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,” she concluded before Collins ended the interview.
