BELMONT, Sept. 16 — About 120 people attended the Minocqua Brewing Co. Antifa Octoberfist Get Out the Vote event at the Belmont Inn and Convention Center Monday night with the apparent of goal of making sure Donald Trump doesn’t get a second term as president.

The event was moved from Platteville’s Broske Center to Belmont after the Platteville Common Council approved a temporary beer license Aug. 27 on a 4–3 vote, but the license application was rejected after a background check on the officers of the Southwest Wisconsin Rainbow Alliance, the local sponsor of the event.

Minocqua Brewing Co. owner Kirk Bangstad said in explaining the event’s move to Belmont “the old boys network in Platteville is just like the old boys network in Minocqua.”

“I’m usually a quiet guy,” he said. “We’re Wisconsin nice. We usually try to avoid conflict.”

But, he added, “Wisconsin is the state that saves America” by voting for Democrat Kamala Harris and not Republican Donald Trump for president.

“Trump has given people permission to treat people poorly,” said Southwest Wisconsin Rainbow Alliance president Royal Palmer, whose group was its local sponsor. “People are just mean to each other because they’ve been given permission.”

Palmer said he decided to become politically active after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis during a police arrest right after Palmer left for Platteville when he and his husband bought Driftless Market.

Palmer then joined the city Taskforce for Inclusion, Diversity and Equity, which created a report that the Common Council has not voted on after negative feedback from city residents.

During a council meeting debating converting TIDE to a city committee Palmer said Ald. Todd Kasper “looked at me and he called me a bigot. It goes against everything I could possibly imagine.”

Palmer said he is now attending UW–Platteville majoring in political science two decades after he last attended college.

Platteville Ald. Lynne Parrott said after Trump’s election in 2016 “the whole integrity and character of people started to change. … We’ve got to get out and get the word out” about Trump.”

Bangstad told Parrott that “You get a progressive majority in Platteville, you get a Parrott beer.”

Bangstad’s attorney, Fred Melms, referred to forces that “chased him out of Platteville” when the temporary beer license for the event, approved by the Common Council, was rejected after a background check of the organizers.

Melms said that if Trump were reelected he “will use the power of government to crack down on members of the weakest of us and the politically most vulnerable.”

Melms also noted “little acts of fascism” by local governments, including battles Bangstad has had with Minocqua-area officials, adding, “we’ve got to fight that,” and that there are “a lot of other elections that matter.”

“Wisconsin has had anti-democratic, anti-government, racist groups for 200 years,” said Tracey Lee Roberts of Platteville, listing the anti-immigrant Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s, Ku Klux Klan rallies in Livingston and Boscobel in the 1920s, and supporters of U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R–Wisconsin) in the 1950s.

Roberts’ list included the Southwest Wisconsin Patriots, which she said were trying “to intimidate this Get Out the Vote event.”

“There is so much good we can accomplish in the next four years if we defeat Trump and Vance at the polls,” she said.

One candidate spoke — Democrat Scott Walker of Prairie du Chien, running in the 49th Assembly District, who asked attendees to “get involved.”

Minocqua Brewing Co.’s Instagram account lists “Antifa Octoberfist” as “a German-style Festbier that is uniquely American,” then defines fascism as “government [led] by a strong man that fetishizes power, uses violence to quash opposition, demands absolute loyalty, and gains power by seducing those who perceive themselves as victims.

“Over the last 70 years, we’ve honored our American forefathers who vanquished fascism in Germany. Those heroes were antifascists, or for short, ‘antifa.’”

Bangstad added, reading from his Instagram feed, that “it’s patriotic as hell to raise your fist against fascism, reject its four tenets, and embrace the true American ideals of democracy, freedom, justice, and equality of opportunity.”

Monday’s event also included signs and T-shirts for sale, including “Lock Him Up” T-shirts under a tent that said “Choose Reason Over Treason” and “Making Wisconsin Great Again.” Signs on a booth that sought “Economic Equity Now” decried the closing of the UW–Platteville Richland campus with the admonition “Tax the Ultra Rich!”

Outside, about 50 vehicles decorated with U.S. flags and Trump for President signs driven by members of the Southwest Wisconsin Patriots and Republicans drove around the area, honking horns. Drivers of a few tractor–trailers parked nearby also honked their horns.

Their presence was noted disparagingly by other speakers — one noting the title “Trump Train Flag Wave Ultra MAGA Freedom Ride” — but few attendees went outside to watch the parade that didn’t enter the parking lot.

A police officer was stationed inside, and several police cars were parked outside.

The Antifa Octoberfist tour was the second of 12 events Minocqua Brewing Co. is holding on behalf of Democratic candidates. After La Crosse Tuesday, the next scheduled event is in Viroqua today, Eau Claire Thursday, Iron River Tuesday, Hudson Sept. 25, Stevens Point Sept. 26, Wausau Sept. 27, Oshkosh Oct. 1, Appleton Oct. 2 and Green Bay Oct. 3.