Hi Friends,
It's Thanksgiving weekend, we're all enjoying the last day of our long weekend, so I'm gonna keep it short and sweet today.
Next week (Dec. 1) marks the time when people can take out nomination forms to run for seats on their County Board.
Normally, this would be the most boring topic for any newsletter that I could possibly write, but not this year.
Disturbingly, we're hearing that there's a surge of folks who believe in the "Big Lie" who are being encouraged to "take over" their county boards--not out of any civic duty to serve the public, but to gain power over future elections at the local level.
This is obviously concerning, because people who falsely believe the "Big Lie" and blindly follow Trump, a ridiculous false prophet, should definitely NOT be given the power to put their feet on the scales of local elections.
We covered this topic in the Up North Podcast last week, and implored folks who want to ensure that local government remains fair and democratic run for office.
Although many of you reading this might not live in Wisconsin, we encourage you to forward this email on to those who do and encourage them to run for county board supervisor seats this spring. They don't need to serve forever, but we need them to serve long enough to get past this authoritarian "Trump Cult" takeover of the Republican Party, which will hopefully end sooner rather than later.
Remember, if Wisconsin's elections become undemocratic, and we're one of only 9 states in the nation that truly decides the presidential election, this statewide problem turns into a nationwide problem in 2024.
Here's the quick and dirty: These elections happen in April, 2022. To get on the ballot, you need to download a nomination form and get 20 valid signatures from folks in your county between December 1, 2021, and January 4, 2022. For the official info, go to this link from the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
In addition to "Serving Local," because it is the holiday season, I wanted to devote a paragraph in this week's newsletter to "Shopping Local."
The Minocqua Brewing Company is a business first, a political Super PAC second. We've never pretended to be anything other than that.
Unfortunately, our political activism has led to boycotts by beer distributors and retail outlets throughout our state, so we wanted to give a HUGE THANKS to all of our retail partners that have stuck their necks out and/or weathered criticism by the Trump Cult by carrying our beer.
This link provides a map to all the stores in Wisconsin and Northern Illinois that carry our beer. We hope that if you live nearby any of these stores, you'll buy stuff from them during this holiday season because your values are probably in line with theirs.
And lastly, much has already been written about the tragedy that happened during the Christmas Parade in Waukesha last week, but I wanted to add a thought.
Between what happened in Waukesha, the Rittenhouse shootings in Kenosha, the Sikh temple shootings in Oak Creek, and the 8 school shootings since 2009 among many others, Wisconsin has experienced too much senseless death.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want to try to refocus this newsletter and the Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC on leading with love and empathy in addition to truth and justice.
I say this because solely focusing on truth and justice can often slip into focusing on hate and fear, and the rhetoric of hate and fear are the fuel behind these senseless killings.
We can do better as a company and as a Super Pac by leading with love and empathy, and we will.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for sticking with us.
Together in Thanksgiving, we can make Wisconsin more loving and empathetic, one beer at a time.
Kirk Bangstad
Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company
Founder, Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC