Minocqua Brewing Company

06/08/2026

06/07/2026

They say that anger is just love disappointed
They say that love is just a state of mind
But all this fighting over who is anointed
Oh, how can people be so blind?

Oh, they tell me there's a place over yonder
Cool water running through the burning sand
Until we learn to love one another
We will never reach the Promised Land

—From “Hole in the World” by the Eagles

Hi folks,

Kirk Bangstad here, owner of the Minocqua Brewing Company.

I’ve been writing essays each Sunday for about 6 years now, and that practice of slowing my mind down and taking stock of the world around me has become my “Church.”

I love going to church if there’s beautiful classical music being performed, but I haven’t yet found that while living in Madison and Minocqua—so writing has become my way of filling my spiritual bucket.

As I was taking stock of last week, the first theme that popped into my head was hatred, which prompted me to seek out a song by the Eagles called “Hole in the World.” After listening to it, I feel I’ve been back to church and can grapple with the theme of “hatred” with grace.

The amount of hatred I’ve received from the progressive left after announcing that I was running for Governor in Wisconsin has been alarming.

One might argue that I invite much of this vitriol onto myself because I have a knack for not being able to “choose my battles." I basically argue with every group that disagrees with me—progressive or republican—when I think I’m right.

For example, I probably should have just zipped my lips before telling a bunch of young, progressive activists in Madison who were trying to rescue tortured beagles to “respect Ridglan Farm’s property rights instead of stealing their dogs,” but I digress.

Of course, picking fights with everyone is a recipe for retaliation, and because I seldom think I’m wrong (“you can always tell a Harvard man, but you can’t tell him much"), people of all political stripes enjoy knocking me down a few pegs. I get it, and I’ve got pretty thick skin as a result.

That being said, I’ve been surprised at the number of “old cis white man” attacks made against me over the last month. Below are just a few examples from a article I wrote last Thursday expressing SUPPORT for fellow progressive gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong over a hit piece written by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about her credit card debt. There have probably been a hundred more racial insults like these leveled at me over the last month.

Now, I absolutely get it.The Venn diagram of people who are trying to kill American Democracy, turn the working class into serfs, and us “old cis white men” is basically three overlapping circles; and those who’ve marginalized women, people of color, and the LGBTA+ community throughout American history have looked a lot like me.

Obviously, “old cis white men” are and have been the most privileged cohort in American society, and it’s completely rational that many of those who haven’t been born into this group are angry at us.

Because we’ve done so much harm over the years, I believe it’s incumbent upon “old cis white men” to use our privilege to BE EXTRA VOCAL about pushing for equality of opportunity in America.

Unfortunately, that belief is not shared by a sizable percentage of urban progressives. Instead of welcoming progressive “old cis white men” into their tent, they’d rather we just sit down and shut up.

Now, if one lived in New York City, that theory might just work. Only 30.9% of them are white, meaning that white men only make up about 15% of the city’s population. Given that white men vote Republican more than any other group, it might actually be a good strategy in New York City to tell us to “sit down and shut up.”

Unfortunately for urban progressives in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin is not New York City. We’re the 13th “whitest” state in America.

86% of Wisconsin is white, meaning that 43% are white males. one out of 10 of us is statistically gay, and older people historically vote a heck of a lot more than younger people.

I think you know where I’m going here.

In Wisconsin, progressives need “old cis white men” to win elections, and if the progressives among us are told to sit down and shut up, the void created will be filled with MAGA “old cis white men,” because there’s a heckuva lot of those guys angrily shouting at the sky.

The graph below shows a 32% shift among young men towards the Republican party from 2018 to 2024.

Now, since I’m a battle-hardened progressive, there’s nothing that some young urban progressive can say to me that’s going to turn me into a Republican, but it’s not hard to imagine that the vitriol directed towards white men in progressive social media circles has played some role in driving younger, more impressionable ones into the arms of Trump.

Given what I’ve read over the last month, I can see why. If the rhetoric you hear day in and day out from one side chastises you for the sins of your fathers, while the other side is telling you that your rightful place is at the top of the pyramid, it’s pretty obvious which argument is more attractive.

So progressives, as desperate as day-to-day life has become in America because old white men at the top of the pyramid have screwed us in every way possible, I encourage you to summon a little grace for those white men who are on your side.

Let’s not create a “hole in the world” of progressive activism by excluding cis white men from our big tent. We want to help, and in a world where our voices are naturally amplified because of our privilege, let us fight with you. To quote the Eagles, who I’d argue is the whitest band in American history, “They say that anger is just love disappointed.”

I know that your “love” has been disappointed by us white guys over and over throughout the years, and that disappointment has led to “anger.” I’m hoping that your anger is met with redemption, as we work with you and fight hard to get all the rights that have been taken away from you back.

E pluribus unum—Out of many, one.

We’ve never quite lived up to our country’s motto, but we have to keep trying.

Now I’m going to go touch grass and a little lake water to help shed the anger that creeps inside me from spending too much time on social media. I’m hoping you can too, and that we can figure out a way to snipe at each other a little less next week.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for sticking with the Minocqua Brewing Company.

Together, let’s focus on “loving one another so we can reach the Promised Land,“ one beer at a time.

Kirk Bangstad
Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company/Minocqua Marketplace
Candidate for Governor, Wisconsin

06/06/2026

Beer Tasting in Minocqua Beer Garden

06/06/2026

The "Minocqua Brewing Company Soapbox: Washing the lies out of Republicans Mouths since 2020," otherwise known as our beer garden stage, is almost complete!

We've got a really cool idea on how to paint the back and the side of the stage, as well as the front, and you'll see that transform over the next few weeks.

joe g. gives us protest songs most Thursdays and Sundays, and owner Kirk gives us beer tastings and righteous indignation most Fridays and Saturdays.

We've just installed a powerful wifi signal to the stage so we can stream the resistance to all corners of the earth, while basking in God's Country in rural Northern Wisconsin.

Join Kirk today at 4 pm to see it all up close and in person.

06/05/2026

Join Kirk today at 4 pm up in for his legendary beer tasting. As always, he will pontificate on ways we can save Wisconsin and America from authoritarianism while sampling all our beers, and he might also talk about less lofty topics--like how NOT to collect signatures to get on gubernatorial ballots.

06/04/2026

Hi folks,

Kirk Bangstad here, owner of the Minocqua Brewing Company.

Most of you know that I’m running to become Wisconsin’s Governor in a crowded Democratic primary, and I’m hopefully days away from being confirmed as a candidate after needing to cure some mistakes on our nomination forms to reach the 2000 signature threshold.

It’s also no secret that I’ve criticized Francesca Hong, the candidate whose beliefs probably overlap most with my own, because I fear she may be unelectable in our purple state where political naivety invites hateful feeding frenzies, socialism is a dirty word, and people of color are torn to shreds by racist ads from out-of-state right-wing political consultants. That being said, I’ll endorse her wholeheartedly if she wins the primary.

While I’ve criticized Hong, I got angry when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel came out with a hit piece against her this week after she was sued for unpaid credit card debt.

First and foremost, a candidate running for Governor with credit problems is probably the MOST relatable thing to Wisconsin voters—especially those under 40 who have been left behind by an economy that siphons money to the rich. Most people who read that article probably nodded their heads and say “yep, been there.”

Second, there is absolutely no shame in falling behind on credit card payments.

I remember working in New York City in my late 20s while trying to become an opera singer. My “day job” was management consulting, but I purposefully worked part time so that I could focus on practicing, auditioning, and performing.

I was making $85K a year, living in Cobble Hill (Brooklyn), and was just barely able to pay my bills in one of the most expensive cities in America. I had about $30K in credit card debt, just like Hong. When the recession hit in 2008, Microsoft—my firm’s biggest client—instituted a moratorium on hiring external consultants. To stay solvent, my firm reduced my salary by like 15%, along with everyone else who worked there. On top of that, my “low rate” credit card—one of many that I shuffled around every 6 months to get another “low rate” deal, shot up to 30% interest as credit seized up around the country. I went from “just getting by” to being underwater in less than a month.

(This, by the way, is going to happen to much of America in two months when we run out of oil due to Trump’s vanity war in Iran, but I digress.)

I had nowhere to turn, so simply stopped paying my credit card bills in order to pay for more important stuff; like food and rent. I couldn’t get another job because the economy was cratering, so I immediately moved to Clinton Hill—a less affluent neighborhood in Brooklyn—to stop the bleeding. Many months later, Obama stabilized our economy, Microsoft started hiring consultants again, and interest rates went down.

I got through it, but I’ll never forget that feeling of helplessness i had, knowing that there was literally nothing I could do to stop myself from drowning in debt.

So sorry, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Your hit piece against Hong fell flat with me, as I’m guessing it did with most Wisconsinites who struggle to meet their basic needs in an economy stacked against them.

Now let’s move to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, owned by small-town-newspaper-destroyer Gannett Corp., and the rest of America’s corporate media.

In a time when educated journalists see American Democracy crumbling and our constitutional rights evaporating, including the 1st Amendment that protects their profession, I’ve lost all tolerance for hit pieces leveled at honest, progressive politicians like Francesca Hong.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Hong’s $30K credit card debt pales in comparison to the kickbacks our Republican politicians are getting for shoving their heads up Trump’s ass, or the money they’re making in prediction or stock markets based on insider information. If the Milwaukee Journal was really playing “fair,” they would write 10 articles about Republican kleptocracy for every 1 article sh****ng on a working class progressive politician like Francesca Hong.

…which means they’re not playing fair. They’re at best—hoping to save their dying industry through sensationalism, or at worst—purposefully using “both-side-ism” to appease the oligarchs running their companies.

When the working class get’s into debt—corporate media slams them for being dishonest, stupid, or lazy.

When the rich get caught stealing from the cookie jar—oh that’s right, they never get caught because corporate media no longer cares about, nor wants to pay for—decent, investigative journalism.

I’ve stopped pretending we have anything close to honest journalism in Wisconsin, and that’s why I created the Minocqua Brewing Company times. We’re now living in the 2nd era of American yellow journalism, where truth is no longer the truth, but is whatever cuts through the cacophony of social media the loudest. I figured that if I wanted to tell my own truth, I had to create my own megaphone—and I have.

Francesca, I still would rather be the one entrusted to lead Wisconsin through this period of American fascism, but they did you dirty this week.

I apologize on behalf of all the Wisconsin journalists that won’t, because they can’t come to grips with the fact that they simply have to be better during these treacherous times.