Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner Francesca Hong dodged a direct question about her deleted 2020 post calling to "cancel Thanksgiving", and her 46-second non-answer is drawing national scrutiny ahead of Wisconsin's primary.

CNN host Kaitlan Collins put the question plainly during a Monday broadcast of "The Source": "Do you still believe that Thanksgiving should be canceled?" Hong, a Democratic Socialist and former restaurant owner now leading the Democratic field for Wisconsin governor, did not say yes. She did not say no. She talked about cooking.

The exchange centers on a 2020 social media post Hong made and later deleted. Fox News reported the original post read: "Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621. If it takes a worldwide pandemic for us to realize we should stop celebrating colonialism and the original superspreader event that killed indigenous folx and women, so be it." The post resurfaced as Hong's gubernatorial campaign gained national attention, and the deletion did nothing to make it disappear.

Forty-six seconds, zero clarity

When Collins asked the question, Hong responded with what the interview transcript shows was a meandering pivot away from the subject:

"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. I always think my hospitality background in owning a restaurant for seven, eight 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. 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."

That ran 46 seconds, the New York Post noted, and never once contained the word "no." Hong's campaign later issued a statement saying she does not want to cancel Thanksgiving, a clarification that only underscored how badly the candidate herself had fumbled the question on live television.

A simple denial would have ended the segment in five seconds. Instead, Hong chose to validate the premise of her original post, calling the holiday "incredibly painful for many people", while simultaneously claiming her views had evolved, without specifying what they had evolved into.

Hong's holiday problem runs deeper than one deleted tweet

Thanksgiving is not the only American tradition Hong has targeted. The New York Post reported that Hong has made negative or gloomy social media posts about at least seven holidays: Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, the Fourth of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. A pattern that broad suggests something more than a single impulsive tweet, it points to a worldview that treats ordinary American life as a problem to be deconstructed.

Hong's broader record fits the mold. Just The News reported that she has also faced scrutiny over past calls to abolish ICE and defund the police, positions that have become familiar liabilities for progressive candidates running in general elections. She is a self-described Democratic Socialist seeking the top office in a swing state that Donald Trump carried in 2016 and that has decided presidential elections by razor-thin margins.

The pattern is not unique to Hong. Progressive politicians across the country have discovered that social media posts from the height of the 2020 protest era do not age well with general-election voters. Calls to defund police, abolish immigration enforcement, and cancel national holidays played well on activist Twitter. They play poorly on a debate stage in front of Wisconsin swing voters.

Squad-style politics meet a statewide electorate

Hong's difficulty is a version of the same problem that has trailed Squad-aligned Democrats from coast to coast. The rhetoric that wins progressive primaries, framing American holidays as celebrations of colonialism, calling for the dismantling of law enforcement agencies, becomes an anchor in competitive races. Pelosi and Omar have refused to address the socialist surge within their own party, and candidates like Hong are left to explain positions that party leaders would rather pretend do not exist.

The evasion strategy has its own costs. When a candidate cannot give a straight answer to a yes-or-no question about a national holiday, voters notice. Collins did not ask Hong to defend a complex policy position or parse a legislative text. She asked whether Hong still wants to cancel Thanksgiving. The fact that Hong could not simply say "no" tells voters more than any policy paper could.

The Washington Examiner characterized Hong's response as an attempt to sidestep the controversy by leaning on her background as a chef, a pivot that satisfied no one. Conservative commentators were quick to pile on. The Libs of TikTok account described Hong's answer as "word salad that would make Kamala [Harris] envious."

Wisconsin's Democratic primary is set for August 11, and Hong enters it as the frontrunner. But frontrunner status in a primary and viability in a general election are different things entirely. Squad-aligned figures have repeatedly embarrassed themselves when forced outside their ideological comfort zones, and Hong's CNN appearance fits that pattern precisely.

Deleted posts do not stay deleted

Hong deleted the 2020 Thanksgiving post, but the internet has a long memory, and opponents have even longer ones. The original language, calling Thanksgiving "the original superspreader event" and declaring America should "stop celebrating colonialism", was not a casual aside. It was a full-throated ideological statement posted during a period when progressive activists were testing how far left the Democratic Party's base would follow.

Now Hong wants Wisconsin voters to believe her views have "evolved." But she will not say what they evolved into. She will not say she was wrong. She will not say Thanksgiving is worth celebrating. She will only say that "there are multiple views", a formulation designed to avoid offending progressive activists while hoping moderate voters do not listen too closely.

That kind of calculated ambiguity is a familiar move from politicians who hold radical positions but need mainstream votes. It rarely works for long. Voters in swing states have shown repeatedly, in 2020, in 2022, in 2024, that they punish candidates who refuse to give straight answers on simple questions. The Democratic Party's internal fractures between its progressive wing and its remaining moderates make this kind of evasion even harder to sustain.

Hong's campaign staff understood the damage well enough to issue a cleanup statement saying she does not want to cancel Thanksgiving. But the candidate herself, given a national platform and a direct question, could not bring herself to say it. That gap, between what the campaign says and what the candidate cannot, is the story.

If you cannot say "no" when someone asks whether you want to cancel Thanksgiving, voters are entitled to assume the answer is still yes.