VIROQUA, WIS — The 2022 Midterm Elections are just a few days away, and local independent voters are psyching themselves up to once again completely wreck society for the foreseeable future.
“I just really thought the fallout from the once in a lifetime pandemic was going to be all rainbows and sunshine,” said cross-eyed Vernon County resident Lake Bellfast. “It’s just not going the way I’d hoped.”
Bellfast — a lifelong independent and Game of Thrones Season 8 superfan — says she takes her voting decisions very seriously and never bases her vote on party affiliation, and instead bases it on short-term, knee-jerk reactions in the moment that will have long-lasting painful effects on everybody.
“Instead of voting based on party — which I think is just nonsense, by the way — I go with the tried and true, best method of picking who I am going to vote for: believing whatever I see on television,” Bellfast added.
The 43-year-old Vernon County resident, who was looking both at our reporter and also the Kwik Trip across the street at the same time, says she is most concerned about rising prices and crime.
“I’m doing candidate research everyday,” Bellfast said of her nightly routine of cracking open a warm Busch Lite and watching Dr. Phil. “These commercials have me really concerned about the direction this country is headed.”
Bellfast — who said that the supply chain was “one of her favorite 80’s hair-metal bands” — is most concerned with inflation.
“As a woman, I was really heartbroken when Roe v. Wade was overturned,” she said, “but as a living Dyson vacuum for snacks, my bank account is completely devastating. Losing your rights is one thing, but having to pay $14.92 for my daily gas station lunch when two years ago it was only $11.23 is an outrage. This has to stop. I have mouths to feed! And they are all mine!”
Crime rate is another top issue for Bellfast, who lives three miles away from the next nearest person in Vernon County.
“From what I gather, the governor released over 100,000 violent murderers just yesterday and they burned down all the schools and grocery stores,” Bellfast said. “I see that and I go, gee… I don’t know if I like that, you know?”
Concerns over election denialism or increasing desire for partisan oversight of elections didn’t seem to resonate all that strongly with Bellfast, who briefly left in the middle of our interview to go look at a nearby Redbox a second time.
“Look, all that stuff does bother me, don’t get me wrong,” Bellfast shouted from the Redbox, hoping she’d finally be able to rent Morbius. “We might be risking pushing it further and further towards a fascist authoritarian takeover, but… gas is like, $3.34 a gallon, I don’t know how much longer I can take thi– OH SWEET, THEY GOT IT!”
Bellfast’s excitement faded immediately, as she intended to press the button for Morbius but missed, and chose The Lighthouse instead.