Saturday, August 1, 2026

Francesca Hong: A Conversion without a Conversion Narrative

By Noah Rothman

Friday, July 31, 2026

 

The Wisconsin Democrats panicking over their own voters’ seemingly imperturbable support for socialist gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong could not have been reassured by her performance on CNN:

 

Francesca Hong, a Democratic socialist, has publicly called for defunding and abolishing the police in Wisconsin during her campaign for governor.

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CNN anchor Dana Bash gave Hong multiple opportunities to disavow her past support for defunding police, a policy that, per the DSA, will help usher in a “perfect world” without prisons. Hong declined each chance. Instead, she simply insisted that ideas “can evolve,” which is not to say that hers necessarily have — merely that such a phenomenon is possible.

 

“But I still know that I cannot defund police as governor,” Hong added. That’s as close as she got to actually answering the question asked of her.

 

This failed to satisfy Bash. “Have your views actually evolved on defunding the police?,” she pressed. Hong couldn’t even keep up the pretense. At this point, she launched into an elaborate, disjointed digression that culminated in an extemporaneous rant about the plight of the incarcerated.

 

It doesn’t sound like Hong has “evolved” on anything. In fact, it seems as if she resents having to pretend, however unconvincingly and merely to get elected, that she shares the consensus view that criminal offenses should be commensurately punished. The sheer indignity of it all.

 

 

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