Hi folks,
I think we just got our “October Surprise,” and it was the news in Bob Woodward’s new book that Donald Trump had up to 7 private phone conversations with Vladimir Putin since the 2020 election, and even sent him Covid testing kits that Americans couldn’t get during the height of the pandemic.
An “October Surprise,” for those not familiar with the term, is a bombshell news event purposefully kept from the public until the October before an election in order to cause the most voter impact. Think of the Access Hollywood tapes where Trump was recorded saying the infamous line “Grab ‘em by the p----,” or FBI director James Comey’s last-minute investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails (which turned out to be nothing but arguably lost her the election).
This news about Trump’s private calls to Putin, likely a violation of America’s Logan Act that prohibits private citizens from negotiating with foreign adversaries, would be disqualifying to any other candidate running for President.
Think about it. We’re basically in a proxy war against Russia while trying to save the Ukraine as part of our treaty alliances with NATO, and a former US president is having regular calls with the enemy. It doesn’t get more damning that that!
As we’ve seen time and time again, however, these “disqualifying events” don’t apply to Trump. The leadership in his party show absolute fealty to him, regardless of the crimes he commits, and right-wing media outlets spin this near-weekly damning news about Trump to make it seem innocent to their conservative audience.
To me though, this "October Surprise" was another reminder that we can never normalize Trump’s continued attacks on our Democracy. The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, retired General Mark Milly, put it best when he told Woodward that Trump is “fascist to the core,” and the “most dangerous person to this country.”
I was in Madison last Friday having lunch with my friend Brian Potts, one of the attorneys who brought our anti-private school voucher case to Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, and I told him that we had to amplify this line of attack against Trump. Sure, his cult won’t pay attention to anything bad he does, but seemingly even hard right voters HATE acts of treason against America, right?!
“Kirk, you already have a flag for that, don’t you? It says ‘Choose Reason Over Treason.’”
“Yeah, we came up with that slogan two years ago during the Gubernatorial election. The guy running against Tony Evers refused to say that Biden won the 2020 presidential election or that the state's Republican leadership was wrong to fraudulently submit a “fake” sleight of electors to frustrate the transfer of power. To me, this meant that if he were elected governor, he’d let Trump run roughshod over our elections and overturn the will of Wisconsin’s voters. That seemed treasonous to me, so I came up with that slogan and put up signs all along HWY 41 from Fond du Lac to Green Bay saying “Choose Reason Over Treason."
“Well I think you should do it again. Put that first one up in Green Bay, and my investment fund called DEMZ will sponsor it. Then hopefully you can raise money to get a bunch more of them up like you did two years ago. It probably helped. Evers’ won by 300K votes, a lot more than Biden did in 2020.”
So that’s how the idea was hatched to once again erect a bunch of “Choose Reason Over Treason” billboards on one of Wisconsin’s busiest highways. We’ll need about $1-2K per sign, and there are about 17 currently available on that stretch of road. If you’d like to donate to help put a few more up, here’s a link to chip in.
Now, to thank Brian for his sponsorship of our first sign in Green Bay, I’d like to briefly put in a plug for DEMZ, his Democratic Large Cap Core Fund.
DEMZ is a fund that is designed to provide similar risk and performance as the S&P 500, but it only includes companies in the S&P 500 that have made over 75% of their political contributions to Democratic causes and candidates. Here’s a link to learn more about the fund. If you want to put money in the stock market but don't want to invest in companies that give money to Republicans, this fund is for you.
I’ve got one more piece of good billboard-related news for you, and this one is coming out of Platteville, WI.
You may remember reading a few weeks ago that one of the craziest of our 12-city “Get Out The Vote” events was held in the Platteville area. The local MAGA contingent, which includes members of the Platteville town council, threatened the owners of the venue where we were having the event and planned a large MAGA truck rally to intimidate the progressives in attendance.
Their antics forced us to call the police, who sent 9 squad cars to surround our event and protect us from these flag-waiving bullies.
Well, it turns out that this outward display of hate inspired a group of Platteville’s progressives to reach out to us and sponsor a BUNCH of progressive billboards in this deeply red part of Wisconsin.
Together, we put up the 5 billboards you see pictured above in a deeply red city with a population of only 11K people!
As I always say, nothing inspires righteous indignation more than a bunch of fake-patriotic know-nothing bullies, and once pushed far enough--those of us who choose love over hate will always win.
Check out this brief video we made in October of 2022, right before the gubernatorial election, that shows all of our "Choose Reason Over Treason" billboards on busy HWY 41
That's all I have for you today folks.
I'm trying to channel my anger and disbelief that our 45th president is actively committing treason against our country and STILL HAS A SHOT AT WINNING THIS ELECTION by focusing that anger and disbelief into making sure he doesn't prevail in Wisconsin on November 5th.
That's all any of us can do right now...work, work, work to defeat Trump and the MAGA movement like we did in 2020, like we did in 2022 when we elected Democratic Governor Tony Evers over a Trump sycophant, and like we did in 2023, when we flipped Wisconsin's Supreme Court to make sure Trump couldn't use his flunkies on that court to overturn our votes.
Thanks for listing, and thanks for sticking with the Minocqua Brewing Company.
Together, one beer at a time, we can't leave anything on the table over the three weeks.
Kirk Bangstad,
Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC
Founder, Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC