Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) said Francesca Hong had called for abolishing the U.S. Senate. Hong's campaign answered by accusing the Republican congressman of “telling lies and inventing quotes.”
Tom Tiffany, a Republican running for governor in Wisconsin, said the remarks from Romer sounded like democratic socialist Francesca Hong, who is running in the state's Democratic gubernatorial primary.
"This sounds a lot like DSA-backed @FrancescaHongWI. Does she want to abolish the police? Yep. Does she want to abolish prisons? Absolutely. Did she call for abolishing the U.S. Senate? Yes. Socialism is knocking on Wisconsin's door. This November, we slam it shut," Tiffany wrote.
A spokesperson insisted the Wisconsin state representative had never made such a statement and claimed Tiffany couldn't produce one because it didn't exist.
Then Tiffany produced it.
On Feb. 13, 2021, Hong's own campaign account posted three words: “Abolish the Senate.”
Abolish the Senate. https://t.co/ndlENp9x2n
— Francesca Hong For Governor (@FrancescaHongWI) February 13, 2021
AI wasn't needed to generate a fake tweet. No editing trick was used, and no murky quotation required interpretation. The sentence remained online, written under Hong's name, waiting for someone to remember it.
Gilda Radner's Emily Litella used to launch into an indignant television lecture after mishearing the subject. Once corrected, she would pause and say, “Never mind.”
Hong's campaign has now performed the political version, minus the graceful admission.
A candidate may change her mind, explaining what she believed five years ago, why she believed it, and why she thinks differently today. Voters understand growth and reconsideration, but no campaign can rewrite the record by calling an opponent a liar when the disputed words are sitting in public view.
Hong's spokesperson even acknowledged that she had spoken about abolishing police and prisons as “an aspirational goal,” while insisting those are no longer her positions and wouldn't be pursued as governor.
The campaign knew how to describe an old belief that had changed; instead, it chose an absolute denial on the Senate quote instead.
The contradiction grows harder to dismiss because Hong is a dues-paying Democratic Socialist of America member endorsed by its Madison and Milwaukee chapters.
The DSA's new national program calls for abolishing the Senate; it also seeks to abolish the Electoral College and replace the president and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary selected by and subordinate to Congress.
Abolishing the Senate would require far more than an ordinary constitutional amendment. Article V says no state can lose equal representation in the Senate without its consent. Every state would effectively need to surrender its own equal voice.
The proposal is radical by design, not a stray reform idea tossed into a policy memo.
Hong can reject any DSA national plank she chooses; her gubernatorial platform doesn't automatically include every demand made by the national organization. Her campaign still can't claim Tiffany invented a quote, when it matches the DSA position word for word and came from Hong's own account.
The exchange arrives as early voting begins for Wisconsin's Aug. 11 primary. Hong, a Democratic state representative from Madison, has led three consecutive Marquette Law School polls in a fractured five-candidate field. Tiffany is the likely Republican nominee, while nearly half of registered voters in the latest survey remain undecided.
A governor, of course, has no power to abolish the Senate, so the immediate issue concerns judgment and honesty. Hong's campaign could've said her 2021 statement no longer reflects her position. Instead, it attacked Tiffany's character and declared the evidence nonexistent.
Wisconsin voters don't need a candidate who agrees with them on every issue. They do need candidates willing to own their words. Political memory may be short, but screenshots and social media archives aren't.
Tiffany brought the receipt. Hong brought Emily Litella but forgot the only line that might have helped: Never mind.
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