Bangsted is a full-blown liberal marxist. He ran for State Assembly 34th last fall, and got trounced 2-1. Most people up here know about his politics and boycott his brewery. His main clientele are fellow liberals, those who vacation in that area & summer residents, all who don't have a clue about him. His business got so bad that he closed his restaurant, claiming he had no help. Word is, nobody would work for him, even if they liberal leaning, because they'd get ostracized for it. He blamed the lack of employees on covid. He sold the restaurant portion to Woodfire Pizza, but still owns the brewery...his big seller is "Biden Beer".
Back during the election campaign, I was still a member on Facebook. I left Farcebook in January. He had a business page for his brewery and a campaign page. On his campaign page, I very respectfully asked him a simple question, "what is your stance on the 2nd Amendment". He ignored my question. So I asked it again. Again, crickets. A friend of mine from St Germain and a couple other local people jumped on it too. My grandson-in-law in Woodruff jumped on it. He finally replied by saying there was a pandemic ravaging the country, quit asking "trivial questions about unimportant matters". WHAT? His reply took more time to write than simply answering my question. I replied that as his potential constituent, and him my potential representative in state government, it wasn't for him to decide what I deemed to be important issues. That was my decision. He again would not answer my question, even after I rephrased it to only require a simple "yes or no" answer... "Do you support more stringent gun control laws?" Instead of answering, he blocked me. That was enough of answer.
He politicized his brewery FB page also. So I went over there and asked him 3 simple "yes or no" questions. "Do you support universal background checks? Do you support Red Flag laws? If there was a vote on the Assembly floor to repeal ccw, would you vote yes or no?" I added, as his potential constituents, the voters in the 34th district had a right to know these answers, as this is a VERY important issue to the majority here. I was blocked on that page within a half hour & that post was removed. So others asked the same questions, and without any replies whatsoever to them, he blocked them also.
He did everything he could to cover up his antigun stance. Because in a very pro gun district, he knew it would kill his election chances. Is it a very pro gun district? The State Senator who served this same area back during the fight for CCW a decade ago was Roger Breske, a Democrat. He was also the ONLY Democrat to sign on as co-sponsor of the both the Zien/Gunderson ccw bills that got vetoed by Doyle. And he voted to override twice also. The 34th Assembly Rep at the passage our current law was also a Dem, Jim Holperin... who was one of the very few Dems who also supported ALL the CCW bills put forth while he was in office.
Bangsted, whom I nicknamed "Bangstick", knew all this. After his loss, he referred to the voters who voted him down as "rednecks" "White supremacists / Nazis", and "dumb hillbillies". He vows to "liberalize" the Northwoods and eliminate the "Trumpists".