GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy wants to ‘cancel Juneteenth’

The New York Post ^ | 08/07/2023 | Victor Nave

[thegagline]

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has called for replacing Juneteenth with Election Day as a national holiday, deriding the celebration of the end of slavery in the US as “useless.”

“Single day voting, on Election Day,” the 37-year-old entrepreneur and longshot 2024 White House contender proposed in a speech before Iowa voters on Saturday. “We will make Election Day a holiday in the United States of America, so there’s no complaints about it.” <

However, Ramaswamy told the crowd that in order to make room for another federal holiday, one of the current 11 would need to be removed from the calendar.

“Cancel Juneteenth or one of the other useless ones we made up,” Ramaswamy said. “You can’t have everything be a holiday, but we’ll cancel one of the other ones and make Election Day a holiday.”

In 2021, President Biden signed legislation declaring June 19, or Juneteenth, a federal holiday.

The celebration commemorates the day in 1865 that federal troops began enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 in Galveston, Texas.

It was the first federal holiday to be added to the calendar since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.

Ramaswamy added that he believes Juneteenth was declared a holiday with a “cultural gun to our head” following nationwide rioting over the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in May 2020. *** Ramaswamy added. “And I think, let’s be honest, the reason for making that a holiday was under political duress, as a political hostage situation on the back of the death of George Floyd. And I think that that is not how we create holidays. We should not create holidays with a cultural gun to our head. And that’s what happened.” ***

[Fuzz]

What doesn’t make sense about it?

[Reno89519]

Yes, we need at least one national holiday each month. Most immediate is election day, the first Tuesday of each November. Then, maybe St. Patrick’s Day in March, Easter in April, ??? for August, and reaffirm COLUMBUS DAY in October.

[ridesthemiles]

VIVEK IS NOT ELIGIBLE TO BE PRESIDENT.

Article 2

Section 1

Clause 5

U S Constitution

[Reno89519]

You never heard of Juneteenth before it was made a holiday? Okay, probably true of many people, especially younger who didn’t get good US history classes or grew up in the South.

[ronnie raygun]

If anything he speaks the truth when it needs to be in thier face

[montag813]

Vivek is such a phony, like with this silly stance that will lead nowhere. Transparent attempt to race-bait, while he hides his support for INCREASING migration to the U.S., and OPPOSES reinstating Trump’s ban on “transgendered” freaks serving in the military. Yet he has so many FReepers fooled.

[escapefromboston]

I grew up in Boston and I was out of school before a lot of PC stuff really started to take over. I just did a quick GoogleTrends search and there was basically zero interest in Juneteenth until 2020.

[reg45]

Juneteenth is an incorrect holiday. Firstly, it’s based upon the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order that could have been rescinded with a stroke of a pen by President Andrew Johnson. It’s not based upon law. Secondly, and more importantly, Juneteenth has nothing to do with the end of slavery in the United States. Slavery remained legal in four states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware - Biden should have known better) for another six months. The end of slavery should be celebrated on the anniversary of the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment - December 6th. 1865.

[reg45]

Oops, that should be Thirteen Amendment.

[Reily]

Exactly!
Such a holiday enshrines ignorance of history!

[thegagline]

As a fan of B&H Photo

J&R, Crazy Eddie’s , and my favorite, all the long and narrow gray market electronics stores where all of the employees seemed to be related to each other. I miss haggling.

[Sacajaweau]

a federal holiday.it was totally local

[thegagline]

Article 2 Section 1 Clause 5 U S Constitution

A little learning is a dang’rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

Alexander Pope

[hanamizu]

“However, Lincoln’s Birthday celebrates the great emancipator...”

---

Lincoln’s birthday is not now nor has ever been a national holiday. When the idea came around to move Washington’s Birthday to the third Monday in February, many thought that both Presidents’ birthdays would be celebrated, hence ‘President’s Day’. But the official name of the February holiday in ‘Washington’s Birthday’.

[chopperk]

Is Vivek taking orders from Soros????

[xkaydet65]

I’ll celebrate Juneteenth if it’s done correctly. The slaves WERE FREED. Passive voice. They DID NOT FREE themselves. So if we celebrate the Union soldiers who freed them, like my maternal great great grandfather who served in the 69th NY, then I would gladly join that celebration.

[ealgeone]

Southern boy here....never heard of it until 2020.

[ealgeone]

Only if framed in this manner....Abraham Lincoln (R) through the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, freed the slaves in the Confederacy owned by Democrats.

[Vigilanteman]

Slavery remained legal in four states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware - Biden should have known better) for another six months.

I'm impressed but Missouri actually outlawed slavery before December 6, 1865. New Jersey had it grandfathered in, so it was actually the 4th state where it was still partially legal with the 16th Amendment was ratified.

FWIW, New Jersey was the only state north of the Mason-Dixon line that didn't vote for Lincoln in either 1860 or 1864. The other two states that voted for McClellan in 1864 were both Union slave states, Kentucky and Delaware.

[Behind Liberal Lines]

He’s a flip flopping grifter who was releasing videos celebrating the holiday just a few months ago.