[CLICK HERE TO READ THE FIRST PART of this abstract from Washington Post’s third article on Door County]
‘A dumpster fire’
Michelle Henderson set one rule for her tavern: Don’t mix alcohol with politics.
“It will cause fights here,” said the 57-year-old owner of the Hen House Bar and Grill in the rural village of Forestville. “I’ve seen it.”
Her regulars are a mix of Republicans and Democrats, she said, and Henderson, who preferred not to reveal her political leaning, was tired of everyone freaking out. She tried to make people laugh with signs like: Now serving Pumpkin Spice … nothing! (Drink whiskey.) That chalkboard-scrawled line came from her husband, who scrubs the hardwood floors each morning with lavender soap.
They didn’t talk about the president and his rivals at home, either. Why taint precious downtime with frustration? The Hen House must remain a politics-free zone not just for business, she said, but also for everyone’s mental well-being.
Henderson had liked Trump’s outspokenness at first — she would have voted for him in 2020 but was recovering from surgery on Election Day. Now she resents his “cockiness” and wishes he and other politicians would channel more energy into addressing the soaring cost of food. Two months ago, she’d had to lift the price of every menu item by 50 cents, and now her barbecue chicken Mother Clucker sandwich cost $10.75. Customers, she knew, wouldn’t pay much more than that.
She wasn’t sure whom to back next year. At least the congressional candidate who frequented her bar wasn’t so bad.
“How many watermelons should I bring?” that candidate, Jacob VandenPlas, was asking. He sipped Maker’s Mark on the rocks as they chatted about the tavern’s upcoming Watermelon Fest, a fundraiser featuring a seed-spitting tournament.
“How many do you have?” Henderson replied.
The proceeds would benefit the former Army infantryman’s nonprofit, a farm where veterans learn to grow produce and cope with post-traumatic stress disorder. VandenPlas, 39, had received that diagnosis in 2008 after his second tour in Iraq.
“More people can see that our current system is a dumpster fire.” — Jacob VandenPlas
The longtime Libertarian saw the major parties as broken and rife with warmongers, which was why he sought a House seat last year representing Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R) won, but VandenPlas had managed to net 10 percent of the vote. Next year, he thought, looked more promising.
“More people can see that our current system is a dumpster fire,” he said.
VandenPlas was heartened by the attention on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential bid as an independent. The environmental lawyer with the famous last name has raised more campaign money in the most recent fundraising period than all others running for the White House except Biden, Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
“You never really know when there’s gonna be a big sea change.” — Phil Anderson
VandenPlas’s political mentor, Phil Anderson, a Senate candidate on his fourth run for office as a Libertarian, was also tracking signs of enthusiasm. Six months into his campaign and a year before the election, Anderson had raised about $13,500 — more money than his team had garnered during the entirety of his last run in 2018.
During a recent visit to the farm, as the pair sampled this season’s cherry tomatoes, Anderson urged VandenPlas to launch more than the purely social media campaign he had been mulling. (It was hard to travel for events, VandenPlas reasoned, when greenhouse chores started at sunrise.)
“You never really know when there’s gonna be a big sea change,” Anderson pushed back, pressing him to “go all in.”
VandenPlas didn’t mention this at the bar, though — not when dozens of patrons around him were enjoying a peaceful night of bingo. The Hen House was oddly quiet as everyone stamped their sheets.
“Hey,” he said to Henderson, who was sliding someone a Spotted Cow beer. “Got any use for a giant box of jalapeños?
Who can fix the conflict?
The days were getting shorter and colder, making it harder to stay upbeat, so Owen Alabado was relieved to organize an evening of distraction.
People were cramming into the Peach Barn brewery for his improv troupe’s first-anniversary show, and the 43-year-old comedian was so grateful for the outlet, he teared up talking about it.
“We’re giving people the ability to come and laugh and forget about all the bulls—,” said Alabado, a Democrat who by day runs a farm-to-table restaurant and a nonprofit supporting LGBTQ+ rights.
“They’re just archaic dinosaurs of humans who don’t really care about the people. They care about their win.” — Owen Alabado
The LGBTQ+ community here is small, he said. As a gay man with Filipino roots in the overwhelmingly White town of Baileys Harbor, he stood out. It felt personal when Door County’s board of supervisors voted in September to restrict what flags can be raised on county poles, effectively banning the Pride rainbow. Then lawmakers in Washington elected a House speaker who had previously suggested criminalizing gay sex.
Alabado was sick of the division, he said. Neither party, he thought, seemed capable of fixing it. He wished he could be excited to vote for Biden, rather than feel obligated to do so to defend “basic human rights.”
“I can’t really speak to anything he has done,” he said, “because I’ve tuned it out, like a lot of people have. We’re so tired of the us-against-them politics.”
He’d grown weary of career politicians in Washington.
“They’re just archaic dinosaurs of humans who don’t really care about the people,” he said. “They care about their win.”
When Alabado shared the spotlight with the Knobs, he forgot about the stress.
“It’s National Coming Out Day,” he told the crowd. “Unfortunately, I’m straight … jacket-friendly. I’d date a crazy person.”
The room cracked up.
He avoided politics in his comedy. His audience was usually an ideological blend, sharing beers and slapping their knees in laughter. “It’s like living in a Hallmark movie,” Alabado thought of the scene.
He didn’t want to ruin anyone’s good time with a reminder of the fractured world outside.
[Editing: except for formatting to suit this media and including less than half of the photos, these extracts reproduce the full text of the story as published by Washington Post]
About this story
Analyses based on data from Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections and MIT Election Data and Science Lab.
Along with Door, the other bellwether counties that have voted for every presidential winner since 2000 are Delaware’s Kent; Minnesota’s Clay; Montana’s Blaine; New Hampshire’s Hillsborough; New York’s Essex and Saratoga; Virginia’s Chesapeake (independent cities are counties in the state); and Washington’s Clallam.
Editing by Cathleen Decker, Natalia Jiménez, Christine T. Nguyen, Kevin Uhrmacher, Madison Walls and Emily Morman. Data analysis by Dan Keating. Design and development by Aadit Tambe and Agnes Lee.
Story by Danielle Paquette
Danielle Paquette is a national correspondent for The Washington Post’s America Desk. She previously served as West Africa bureau chief and has reported from more than 20 countries on four continents. Twitter
Story by Sabrina Rodriguez
Sabrina Rodriguez is a national politics reporter for The Washington Post. She chronicles the evolving demographics in battleground states and the ways candidates, campaigns and interest groups seek to mobilize voter blocs large and small. Twitter
Photography by Carolyn Van Houten
Carolyn Van Houten is a staff photojournalist at the Washington Post. She was a recipient of the Overseas Press Club’s Robert Capa Gold Medal, RFK Human Rights Award, and was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 in Media. She was on the team that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. Twitter 
