It has not been a banner week for DSA darling and Wisconsin gubernatorial hopeful Francesca Hong. The representative for the state’s 76th district, which includes Madison, the capital city and the home of the University of Wisconsin, is the current frontrunner for the Democratic nomination to replace outgoing governor Tony Evers, a fellow Democrat. Hong has been feted as one of the leading lights of the surge of DSA-backed Democrats looking to inject far-left populism into the national party. Hong has appeared alongside Marxist streamer Hasan Piker and has received support from other democratic socialists like Zohran Mamdani, the current mayor of New York City.
Much of Hong’s appeal lies in her youth and background. Hong, 37, was born and raised in the uber-liberal city of Madison as the daughter of immigrant parents originally from South Korea. She made national headlines in 2021 by becoming the first Asian-American member of the Wisconsin State Assembly, and from that perch, Hong has helped to pass several progressive bills, including mandating the teaching of Asian-American history in Wisconsin public schools and the development of an “economic Bill of Rights” for Wisconsin’s citizens. Hong has even managed to gain some support among libertarian-leaning voters in the Badger State for her promise to impose a moratorium on the construction of new data centers.
Although Hong currently holds a 22-point lead over other Democratic contenders, recent self-inflicted missteps could hurt her electoral prospects. The controversy began in late July, when old social media posts resurfaced showing Hong’s apparent dislike of American holidays and Americans, particularly older white Americans. In one Tweet shared publicly by conservative podcaster Stephen Miller, Hong wrote in November 2020: “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 Indegenous folx [sic] and women so be it.” When CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins raised the comments during an interview on The Source, Hong refused to say whether she still supported canceling Thanksgiving:
“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.”
Hong’s now-deleted rant about Thanksgiving is not the only evidence of her general disdain for American traditions. A few days before July 4, 2019, Hong wrote on X that “I do not enjoy fireworks,” which can easily be interpreted as a dig at Independence Day. That same year, Hong posted on X that she refused to work on Halloween and that, if she did, she would “actually ask every single person in costume to leave” her restaurant.
But of all the holidays that Americans celebrate each year, Hong seems to hold a special hatred for Valentine’s Day. On February 14, 2022, Hong wrote, “As if we weren’t invisible enough to those who don’t recognize the emotional & physical labor of service work, the worst of humanity comes out from folks ‘celebrating’ on another day capitalism tells you how to show love.”
A lot of this discontent could be chalked up to Hong’s personality, i.e. she’s a miserable grinch. However, other facts about Hong should give Wisconsin’s voters pause. Besides her vocal support for far-left ideas like the abolition of ICE and policing in general, Hong is currently embroiled in a lawsuit, with Capital One Bank suing the politician for unpaid credit card debt totaling $30,000. Per Dane County filings as of May 26, Hong has been the owner of a Capital One credit card since September 2011. Since that time, she has failed to make the minimum payments and currently owes $29,344.48.
Hong’s rocky history with business, finance (as executive chef, Hong’s restaurant, Morris Ramen, closed its doors for good in 2024), and education (she dropped out of the University of Wisconsin, where she was majoring in journalism) is comparable to her rocky history with mental health. In a puff piece meant to celebrate Hong as the socialist future of American politics, the Wisconsin politician admitted to suffering a mental breakdown at the age of 18 that resulted in her being hospitalized for a week. Hong admitted in the same interview that she practiced self-harm, such as cutting, and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
But out of all the skeletons in Ms. Hong’s closet, her most damaging may be her public lament about her own son. In a now-viral clip from a podcast interview with ListenMKE published in September 2021, Hong lamented that her half-white son causes her to have an “inescapable proximity to whiteness.” Hong, who is divorced from Matt Morris, the father of her child, made these comments during a broader discussion about race and Hong’s desire to make Marxism and critical race theory “ubiquitous” in American classrooms.
Francesca Hong is the epitome of millennial socialism. Spurred on by the rise of right-wing populism and the age of Trumpism, millennial socialism has all but captured the Democratic Party and forced it leftwards. As a result, the vanguard of the Democratic Party is afflicted with the terminal spiritual disease of not only third worldism, but millennial obsessions with victimhood, racial grievance, therapy, and so on. Hong is the poster child of the average DSA supporter: mentally unwell, economically illiterate, and imbued with such strong resentment and hatred towards the United States and her people that she cannot help but look at her own son and see an enemy.
Such a nightmare can never become governor and should never have been elected to office in the first place.
