“Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.”
--Bertrand Russell
Folks let’s look at two facts that are seemingly disconnected, but are actually very intertwined.
First, Nancy Pelosi’s husband was almost killed last week because a deranged right-wing lunatic went to his home looking to murder her—after years of violent rhetoric from the Republican Party that basically encouraged people to do what this man tried to do.
Second, after being shown conclusively that the 2020 presidential election was secure, 61% of Republicans still think that Trump lost because of voter fraud.
These two facts are related because too many once-reasonable conservatives, our neighbors, have had the “medium of their own desires” satisfied with a steady diet of misinformation by Republican leaders and the right-wing media that profits off of those lies.
The culmination of this deep deception, which has warped too many once-reasonable conservative world views, is now coming to fruition. We are witnessing alarming political violence in the name of backwards patriotism by people who think their truth comes from Trump and Tucker Carlson.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
It’s time for reasonable people to take a stand and put a stop to all of this. And the reasonable people of Wisconsin have to take the lead because the rest of America depends on us—a deeply dysfunctional swing state.
Last week, the Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC put a sign up on a major thoroughfare in Republican-dense Waukesha County that said “Choose Reason Over Treason.” We think these four words can help bring reasonable conservatives, some of the 39% that have accepted that Biden is our president, to our side for this one election.
We used our relatively large platform to ask for more donations to get more signs up in the most heavily populated conservative areas of Wisconsin, namely the suburbs of Milwaukee (Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington (WOW) Counties).
A lot has happened since then.
Thanks to you, we raised enough money to put up four more signs—one more in the Milwaukee suburbs (Greenfield), one in Wausau, and another two that will go up on Monday in the Fox Valley.
Why not all of them in the WOW counties?
After I posted my missive last Sunday asking for help to put up more signs, I got a letter from Kevin Hermening, the former head of Wausau’s Republican Party, calling me a “filthy piece of garbage.” I wasn’t planning on putting any signs up in Wausau, but Kevin inspired me. I posted his letter to the Minocqua Brewing Company’s Facebook page, and was immediately able to raise the requisite $2000 for a sign in Wausau IN HIS NAME. Thanks again, Kevin. Your disparaging words inspired a lot of Wisconsinites to indignantly choose decency over hatred by donating to the cause.
The reason we’re putting the last two signs in the Fox Valley is because 2 of the top 3 sign companies in Wisconsin that had digital signage space in the Milwaukee suburbs refused to put our signs up. They said that since none of the politicians on the ballot in Wisconsin had yet been convicted of treason, the signs were too inflammatory.
Too inflammatory? That's rich given that we've watched a commercial with a Republican candidate shooting a gun at Pelosi. We think this decision made by lawyers at these sign companies was ridiculously myopic, cowardly, and cynical.
They know both parties pay exorbitant amounts of money to get their messages out every two years, and this money helps them maintain their six-figure salaries. Apparently truth takes a back seat if it infuriates the party that generally spends more money on billboards.
As Upton Sinclair famously said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
So why did we spend your remaining money on two signs in the Fox Valley?
We were forced to develop a new strategy—we are now going to put up as many signs as we can on Highway 41, the massive artery in Wisconsin that connects the Fox Valley, Wisconsin’s second largest concentration of Republicans, to the Milwaukee Suburbs, the largest concentration of Wisconsin’s Republicans…
…and because the company willing to put our signs up has a lot of sign real-estate on HWY 41.
This highway is already deluged with fear-mongering Republican billboards because they know that a huge percentage of the state’s conservative population drive on this road every day.
Our sign company said that for $17,000, we could rent every single one of the billboards you see on this map between tomorrow and the election on November 8.
Folks, $17K is a lot of money, but it’s not that much if divided between the 50K of you that get our email every week and the 70K of you that follow the Minocqua Brewing Company Facebook page.
The results of this election will determine the future of American democracy. Alongside America's reasonable politicians, journalists, and activists, I’ve tried to spell this out in every way I could over the last few months.
I don’t want to leave anything on the table, and I think a solid wall of these signs on one of the most travelled highways in Wisconsin will not only be deeply encouraging to all of us having nightmares about America’s future, but will also inspire a few more folks to vote blue.
Can you help us get these these signs up?
Here’s a link to chip in.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for still believing that the little guy can change the world if he links arms with a lot of other little guys and refuses to give up.
I will NEVER stop believing that, no matter what the odds are, because that’s the REAL American Way.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for sticking with us. Together, we can salvage a "government of the people, by the people, and for they people," one beer at a time.
Kirk Bangstad
Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company
Founder, Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC
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