Minocqua Brewing Company owner Kirk Bangstad sparked international condemnation for his lament that President Trump wasn’t assassinated. But as Justin Phillips reports, this was just the latest in a long list vile behavior.
In the quiet heart of Wisconsin’s Northwoods, where lake living and traditional small-town communities thrive, one man has turned a local brewery into a weapon of toxic political warfare, personal vendettas, and alleged financial self-dealing. Meet Kirk Bangstad, owner of Minocqua Brewing Company and self-styled progressive provocateur. To his dwindling band of online supporters, he’s a brave resistor against “MAGA bullies.” To anyone with common sense and a respect for decency, he’s a textbook example of a professional grifter, a relentless troll, and a genuinely toxic piece of work whose antics have poisoned community relations, wasted court time, and, most damningly, exploited the goodwill of donors who thought they were funding “progressive” causes rather than subsidizing one man’s ego, legal bills, and lifestyle.
Elite Ivy League-educated Bangstad didn’t grow up in Minocqua. He and his late wife, Elizabeth, relocated there after her cancer diagnosis, turning what should have been a private, personal tragedy into political capital years later. Let’s start with the character question because Bangstad himself handed conservatives the receipts in a jaw-dropping 2020 campaign blog post titled “Remembering My Late Wife Elizabeth.” While eulogizing Elizabeth, who died of stage 4 lung cancer in 2018, Bangstad casually admitted that during the final, agonizing months of her life, when the cancer had spread to her brain, steroids made her irritable, and the couple was briefly estranged. He said he “took to drinking and carousing” and “wasn’t faithful to Elizabeth.” He framed the infidelity as something he was “owning up to” before opponents could use it against him.
Imagine a man who claims empathy as his guiding political virtue and lectures others about compassion and science, openly confessing he cheated on his dying wife and then weaponized the story in a campaign essay to boost his “honesty” credentials. That single admission reveals everything about his moral compass, but it’s not the only thing.
His 2020 run for Wisconsin State Assembly District 34 against incumbent Republican Rob Swearingen was a clinic in sensational smear tactics. Bangstad repeatedly accused Swearingen, the owner of the Al-Gen Dinner Club, of being partly responsible for the COVID death of Scott Haskins, husband of one of Swearingen’s restaurant employees. Bangstad claimed lax safety protocols at the restaurant led to the wife contracting the virus, which she then passed to her husband. A claim that was not supported by the diseased’s family. He linked this to Swearingen’s opposition to harsh lockdowns and mask mandates, branding the Republican “let-them-eat-Covid” and accusing him of sacrificing grandmas for vodka sales. Later, when a fire destroyed the supper club, Kirk was there to accuse the owners of setting the fire to collect insurance money.
The accusation was inflammatory and personal, and it leveraged a family tragedy for political gain in a highly polarized race that Bangstad lost badly. Even some left-leaning observers later distanced themselves from the tactic.
Once the campaign ended, Bangstad didn’t retreat to running a normal business. He transformed Minocqua Brewing into a progressive propaganda machine, complete with “woke” beer lines, Biden banners that violated local ordinances, and relentless attacks on local Republicans. The real grift, however, kicked into high gear with the Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC, which he founded and controls. The PAC raised over $2 million from well-meaning liberals who believed they were fighting “dark money” and supporting progressive causes in red Wisconsin. Instead, according to a detailed February 2025 civil lawsuit filed by longtime target Gregg Walker (publisher of the Lakeland Times) and Heather Holmes, Bangstad funneled roughly $460,000–$500,000 to himself and two obscure entities, Effervescent Blue and NCPS, described as little more than UPS store fronts for personal expenses. The suit alleges the PAC paid Bangstad “consulting fees,” covered personal legal bills (including a bankruptcy attorney), subsidized brewery operations, and paid bar staff for minimal political work.
FEC filings confirm massive disbursements to legal services and these shell-like outfits, while direct candidate contributions were essentially zero. Bangstad’s brewery donated less than $10,000 despite public promises of 5% of profits. Former employees and investigative reports have questioned whether the PAC became a personal piggy bank rather than a political force. Bangstad calls it a “Republican hit job.” Donors might call it something else. Even former employees questioned Bangstad’s use of SuperPAC funds, according to Channel 3000:
“I was hired as a manager to basically take care of the bar, take care of his tap room in Madison,” said a former employee who requested anonymity. “At first, I was paid by a regular direct deposit, and then he said he’s going to pay me from the Super PAC and from the business. And I started to do some research. I spoke with a couple attorneys and an accountant, and they said, that’s kind of shady, not a good idea.”
The legal rap sheet is equally damning and lengthy. Wisconsin court records show Bangstad has been entangled in at least 8–10 circuit court cases in recent years, mostly in Oneida County, as well as federal suits. Highlights include:
- A 2023 civil defamation judgment in favor of Walker for social-media posts implying Walker stood by while his brother died in a tree-stand accident to inherit the family newspaper. A jury awarded $750,000—one of the largest defamation verdicts in Wisconsin history. Bangstad paid $50,000 personally after insurance covered the rest in a settlement.
- A 2024 criminal defamation arrest over a lewd, manipulated image of Walker and Holmes. Charges were eventually dropped, but not before Bangstad defied a judge’s no-posting order.
- A June 2025 arrest for yelling profanities at Walker outside the brewery and displaying a framed lewd depiction during what Bangstad called a “political protest.” In April 2026, he pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct, was fined $500 plus costs, and had other charges dismissed. He’s now a convicted man by his own plea.
- Ongoing zoning and permit battles with Oneida County and the Town of Minocqua. Bangstad has sued the county for millions, claiming political retaliation for his liberal views, while the county has revoked his conditional use permit multiple times.
- The 2025 Walker/Holmes civil suit accuses him of Super PAC fraud, privacy violations (using Walker’s likeness on “Snowflake Ale”), and more. Still pending as of the latest reports.
Then there’s the petty trollery that reveals the man’s true character. In 2024, he tangled with Ope! Brewing Co. over a Tim Walz-themed “Ope” beer, leading to trademark threats he spun as yet another attack on his activism. He’s accused of doxxing critics, review-bombing rivals, and launching online hate campaigns—sentiments echoed repeatedly on Reddit’s r/wisconsin and r/madisonwi, where even some progressives call him a “grifter,” and a “bully,” who makes the left look deranged.
The crown jewels of Bangstad’s derangement came in his repeated “free beer all day long the day Trump dies” promotions. He doubled down after an assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, posting that the brewery “almost got #FreeBeerDay” and that someone “needs to work on their marksmanship.” Even some Wisconsin Democrats condemned the remarks as “completely unacceptable.” This isn’t activism—it’s ghoulish incitement wrapped in hipster beer branding.
Bangstad has also peddled some of the most tasteless and hateful merchandise imaginable. Through his Minocqua Marketplace, he has sold large numbers of handmade Trump voodoo dolls — mockingly described as featuring “swollen cankles,” prison stripes, and worse. He expanded the line to include voodoo dolls of other Republicans such as Pam Bondi and Stephen Miller (the latter complete with Joseph Goebbels imagery on the back), along with “EFF ICE” hoodies and whistles to “summon killer orcas to Mar-a-Lago.” Bangstad proudly promoted these items on the brewery’s Facebook page and even hosted a “voodoo séance” to “punish the Trump regime,” openly tying the grotesque products to both profit and political warfare.
Perhaps most un-American was his 2025 stunt threatening to “peacefully disturb, delay, or shut down” Minocqua’s Fourth of July parade after his arrest. He demanded the county settle his permit disputes and the sheriff apologize, or else volunteers would block the family event. He later bragged it was a successful “troll” that exposed “tyrannical” local government. No disruption occurred, and Kirk spent the day drinking another brewer’s beer on a boat, but the threat alone showed a man willing to ruin a community celebration over personal grudges.
Photo via Minocqua Brewing Company Facebook, 4th of July
Kirk Bangstad is the perfect embodiment of everything toxic in American politics today. He’s a coastal transplant who imported big-city grievance politics to a small town that never asked for it, then monetized outrage through a brewery and a Super PAC that appears to exist primarily to fund his lifestyle and lawsuits. He preaches empathy while cheating on his dying wife and smearing opponents over family tragedies. He rails against “dark money” while allegedly siphoning donor dollars into sham entities. He demands civility from others while yelling profanities, posting lewd images, and celebrating political violence.
Kirk’s repugnant rants are not without casualties. LibsofTikTok and other outraged X accounts have scoured the internet, hunting down anyone who liked or commented in support of his most recent pro-assassination statements, turning social-media cheerleaders into public targets. The political body bags are piling up. Candidates like Rebecca Cooke, who previously worked as a political consultant and fundraiser for Bangstad, raking in thousands from his operations, and Francesca Hong, who joined him for podcasts, donated to him, and has been described as a friend, now face a reckoning for their associations with the brewery owner. Will this latest celebration of Trump’s would-be assassin finally be the thing that forces the Wisconsin left to cut ties with this progressive crackpot once and for all?
The Northwoods deserves better than this professional troll turning Main Street into a battleground. Locals have responded with boycotts, permit fights, and disgust. If Bangstad’s pattern continues, he’ll keep the violent rhetoric turned to 11, keep suing, and keep grifting, until the well of liberal donor outrage finally runs dry.
