Today is Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the abolition of slavery in 1865—established as an official federal holiday in 2021. You might think that commemorating an event like the abolition of slavery would be uncontroversial. But, like almost everything else these days, Juneteenth has gotten swept up in the left-right culture war. A recent University of Massachusetts poll found that 69%of Democrats, but only 13% of Republicans and 32% of independents supported making it a federal holiday. The ideological divide mirrors the partisan one (77% of self-described liberals express support, 40% of moderates, and only 14% of conservatives).
