09/07/2026
“To meet the aim of their conspiracy, ensuring that President Biden not be elected President, the conspirators contemplated an alternative plan where Vice President Pence would refuse to count any electoral votes from the seven states in which there were "competing" presidential electors and then determine that our next President had to be chosen by a vote of the delegations of each state in the House of Representatives, which similarly would have resulted in President Trump being declared the “winner” even though he clearly and lawfully lost the election in each of the seven states at issue. With the object of the conspiracy (the Biden-Harris ticket not being declared the winning ticket on January 6, 2021) plainly understood among the conspirators and knowing the constitutional crisis that would develop from either of these scenarios, the conspirators had a backup plan: delay the tabulation of electoral votes on January 6, 2021 and have the legislatures in the seven states choose new presidential electors.”
—Stencil v Johnson (The Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC’s lawsuit against Senator Ron Johnson, Rep. Tom Tiffany, and Rep. Scott Fitzgerald)
This is the second part of a two-part essay that looks at how Trump will attempt to steal our elections in two months. My essay yesterday (posted on FB) reminded readers how Trump tried to steal our elections in 2020, so our minds would be fresh to understand how some of those same tactics will be used this November.
Hi folks,
Kirk Bangstad here from the Minocqua Brewing Company.
It’s Labor Day, 2026—and according to yet another essay I wrote over a year ago, today should be the day we all go on a strike to ensure that America holds free and fair elections in November. My theory was that if we organized a General Strike weeks before the election, we’d destroy our economy and the oligarchs would lose billions. Having lost so much money as a result of the working class rising up against them, the oligarchs would lose faith in Trump’s regime, bribe their Republican puppets in Congress and SCOTUS to overrule Trump’s nationalization of our elections, and while saving their fortunes—accidentally save America too.
A lovely dream, wasn’t it?
Things haven’t progressed nearly like that. Instead of passing state laws and running scenarios to train local law enforcement and states’ national guards to protect our elections over the last year, leaders of the Democratic Party spent most of last year trying to kick Democratic Socialists out of our “big tent” by calling them antisemitic, unelectable, and unrealistic for demanding policies like “Medicare for All.”
While Corporate Democrats were busy attacking Hasan Piker for calling the Palestinian genocide what it was, we all woke up a few weeks ago to news that SCOTUS allowed Trump to move forward with his plan to dismantle mail-in voting, which could disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans.
Now we’re all running around with our heads cut off, freaking out about about election protection. Better late than never, I guess?
"The Democracy Docket" is my “go to” independent media source when trying to keep up with all the ways Trump is trying to steal this upcoming election. Marc Elias is a leading lawyer involved in most of the election protection cases around the country, and in his organization’s August 6th analysis entitled “How Could Trump Rig the Midterms,” they’ve listed 5 different ways that our elections will be attacked. I’d recommend you read this entire article, but I’ll summarize this list here and ad a 6th scary option that I think they’ve missed.
1. Restricting mail voting
If SCOTUS allows this to happen this close to the election, it will disenfranchise millions of voters and prove to America that they’re fully compromised. We’d have to take to the streets in our nation’s capitol immediately if they do this.
2. Sending troops or law enforcement to the polls
At this point, it’s practically guaranteed this will happen, and it will be ugly. Not a single member of Trump’s regime, when asked point blank if they will send federal agents to interfere with our elections, have denied it. The best defense against intimidation is to not be intimidated, and to show up to the polls no matter what. We have to simply overwhelm them with Democratic voters to make up for anyone who doesn’t show up because they’re scared.
3. Seizing ballots and voting equipment
The FBI already executed a search warrant on an elections facility in Fulton County, Georgia, and took control of around 700 boxes of 2020 election records, including original ballots. There’s no reason to believe they won’t alter the contents of those boxes and use them as fake “evidence” to show that the midterm results in Fulton County are “fraudulent.” If they do this in every swing district around the country under the auspices of “fraud,” they could make it impossible to hold an election in those districts. Again, the only way to overcome this scenario is to show up en masse to vote, so there’s absolutely no question that Democrats win by huge majorities.
4. Voter roll purges
It’s hard to vote when you’ve been kicked off the rolls. Texas just did this to over a million voters. Sure, many of those Texans can re-register by an October deadline, and many can ask for provisional ballots at the voting booth, but the point of purging voters is to cause confusion, depress turnout, and ultimately give more fake “evidence” of voter fraud that the Trump regime will use in the courts. The best way to combat this form of voter suppression is to be absolutely vigilant between now and the election to make sure you’re registered to vote.
5. Pressuring Republicans to refuse to seat Democrats
This is a truly scary option that I hadn’t though about before reading the Democracy Docket Article.
Under federal law and Supreme Court precedent, the final say on who gets seated in the House is entirely controlled by a majority of its members — meaning, in this case, the lame-duck Republican majority.
In modern times, this has never been an issue because our Democratic institutions were stronger, there were more guardrails in place, and we’ve never had an entire party that licked the boots of a would-be dictator. Our speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is an election denier. Why would anyone think he couldn’t be convinced to simply refuse to allow Democrats to take the majority of the house even if they won fair and square? The Hill wrote about this possibility a few weeks ago.
If this happens, Americans would have to descend onto Washington D.C. en masse to protest and ensure Congress transfers power peacefully.
6. Republican-majority state legislatures refuse to recognize Democratic congressional victories
This crazy option wasn’t discussed in the Democracy Docket’s analysis, but I think it’s worth adding. Independent state legislature theory used to be a fringe argument in election law that said state legislatures have absolute authority to manage elections however they see fit. This theory—extrapolated to its furthest conclusion— suggests that Republican-majority state legislatures may simply decide they don’t like that a Democrat flipped one of their Congressional districts and refuse to accept the results—and the Governor or Supreme Court in those states couldn’t stop them.
Does that sound crazy? It does, but a third of SCOTUS—Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch—endorsed the idea in 2020 when Trump’s lawyers used it to try to overthrow the presidential elections by suggesting that states could simply INVALIDATE the electoral votes for Biden and pick new presidential electors who would vote for Trump. This exact thing was tried in Wisconsin, and that’s why I started this essay with a quote from our lawsuit that explained Wisconsin’s fraudulent elector scheme.
Not only did these three justices side with insurrectionists in 2020, they supported the independent state legislature theory again in 2023, when North Carolina’ Republicans used it to try to gerrymander their state.
This fringe theory is no longer fringe, and that’s why the Brennan Center for Justice is trying to warn people about it. Here’s a cartoon they made to make it easy to understand. here's a link to it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdPZCMpP3u4
So what are we to do about all of this?
First, as Ted Lieu, Democratic Congressman from California said, just “Go 'effing' Vote.”
I’m simply not sure honest Americans will be able to beat back this monumental effort to suppress our votes, but if we are, people are going to have to come out to vote en masse for Democrats and put up massive numbers against Republicans. The wider the margin, then harder it will be to claim voter fraud.
Second, if you look at all these ways Trump will try to steal the midterms—most of them will require illegal complicity from SCOTUS and the U.S. House of Representatives.
I think it’s imperative that Americans show up EN MASSE to Washington DC and demand that Congress and SCOTUS stand up for the rule of law in these upcoming elections.
If they see hundreds of thousands of people in the streets demanding they do the right thing in November, there’s hope that enough of them will grow spines and stand up to Trump come November and continue to stand up for the rule of law before the new Democratic House Majority convenes in January.
This is why I’ve signed up to be a “marshal” in Flare U.S.’s “October Surprise” rally. I don’t know what being a marshal fully entails, but they’re going to train me on October 6, and then I’m going to do what they tell me to do on October 7 and 8th. I hope everyone reading this can join me. Here's a link to sign up: https://flareusa.org/octobersurprise/
If our elections are stolen from us, there’s a high likelihood that America will descend into civil war. That being said, we must be ready to strike and boycott as ways to non-violently topple the Trump regime EVEN IF he gets away with stealing this election. I’ve spent the last year and a half building the Minocqua Marketplace specifically to be used as a boycotting tool if our elections are stolen. It’s not yet the “Amazon for Progressives” that I’ve envisioned, because you can’t yet buy everything you need on the site to ensure your money doesn’t fund fascism, but the plumbing is all there for it to become that.
That’s all I have for you today, folks. Here’s the conclusion:
--Go effing vote
--Protest en masse at our nation’s capitol
--Sign up to be poll workers and poll watchers, then call 911 and take video if you see federal agents abusing voters.
--If these election are stolen, we must FULLY COMMIT as Americans to striking and boycotting to topple the Trump regime non-violently.
Had we started organizing a year ago to protect elections, we might have been able to do even more, but here we are. Let’s at least do what we can.
Thanks for reading, thanks for sticking with the Minocqua Brewing Company, and Happy Labor Day.
Kirk Bangstad
Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company/Minocqua Marketplace
Publisher, Minocqua Brewing Company Times (Substack)
