Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) received a barrage of critical comments Monday over a social media post honoring “Native Americans’ Day” in South Dakota, which became the first state in 1990 to replace Columbus Day with a holiday celebrating indigenous peoples.

“Today is Native Americans’ Day in South Dakota, an opportunity to celebrate the heritage and contributions of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota people,” Thune posted on X.

South Dakota has one of the highest percentage of Native Americans in the country, with more than 11% identifying as such, per the 2020 Census.

Thune has made similar posts in years past to mark the holiday. But Monday’s post was met with thousands of fierce comments and praise for Columbus Day, marking the latest instance of Thune drawing the ire of the party’s online conservative base.

THUNE DRAWS FLAK FOR ‘NATIVE AMERICAN DAY’ POST

The holiday, which is observed on the second Monday of October, is the longtime subject of a heated culture war debate. Columbus Day is often celebrated by Republicans to honor Italian explorer and navigator Christopher Columbus’s exploration of the Americas in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, while Democrats tend to recognize a form of Indigenous Peoples’ Day to honor North American inhabitants before mass immigration from Europe.

The Italian American Civil Rights League spurned Thune’s similar Native Americans’ Day post last year as “racist, insensitive and frankly Anti-Trump post,” and accused him of “trying to erase Italian Americans.”