When I think of Montana, things like freedom, self-determination, and rugged individualism come to mind, certainly not socialism. But that may soon change.
On June 2, Sam Forstag will vie to become the Democratic Party’s candidate for Montana’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Forstag, a smokejumper, has received endorsements from socialist superstars like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and U.S. Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) as well as a glowing three-part profile in Esquire titled “The Wildfire-Fighting Union Leader Who Could Change Montana Politics.”
Forstag absolutely can change Big Sky politics if he succeeds in becoming the first Democrat member of the House from Montana since 1997.
But is Forstag a Democrat? Or is he more of a democratic socialist?
Based on his policy platform from his campaign website, it sure seems like he leans more toward the latter than the former.
Forstag supports “significant federal investment in affordable housing,” Medicare for All, “universal free childcare," "universal Pre-K,” expanding public lands agencies, expanding Social Security benefits, a $15 federal minimum wage, etc.
He also, predictably, supports huge tax hikes such as a five percent tax on “fortunes over $1 billion,” a 30 percent minimum marginal tax rate “for income over $1 million per year,” a 35 percent corporate tax rate, and repealing the tax rate cuts from the 2025 reconciliation package.
Like most participants from both sides of the aisle this primary season, Forstag is leaning into the affordability crisis.
“For a lot of us in Montana, costs have reached crisis levels,” he correctly states.
He is also correct that “every Montanan should be able to work a job that pays well enough to afford housing, healthcare, childcare, and a good retirement.”
However, Forstag’s agenda would make the affordability crisis worse, not better.
In late April, AOC and Sanders stumped for Forstag at one of their “Fighting Oligarchy” rallies. It was the usual socialist spiel: billionaires are evil, the economy is a zero-sum game, corporations are parasites, class warfare is inevitable, government is great, yada, yada, yada.
In a classic example of projectionism, AOC accused Montana Republicans of trying “to stoke deep divisions along race, identity and culture to keep us fighting and distracted.”
Give me a break! Sowing discord and pitting groups against one another is the essence of democratic socialism.
For his part, Forstag ran with the divide-and-conquer strategy, warning that America is “under attack by a bunch of people who’ve never had dirt underneath their fingernails.”
When AOC, Bernie, and others went off the rails, basically demanding a socialist revolution in the United States and major legislation to address the “climate crisis,” Forstag played along.
Although it has received less attention in recent years, here is a brief reminder of what AOC, Bernie, and democratic socialists want in terms of the climate crisis. They want the end of fossil fuels, which would mean the end of reliable and affordable energy in the United States, under the Green New Deal.
Most recently, democratic socialists have waged war on AI and data centers. For instance, AOC and Bernie demand a federal moratorium on all data center development. Forstag generally agrees with this, although he has couched his language to appear less fanatic. “We need strict federal requirements on the construction of any new data centers,” he says.
Nevertheless, he stresses the need for “federal oversight and regulation” because he believes a centralized, command-and-control approach is superior to the invisible hand of the free market and experiments at the state level in the laboratories of democracy.
Unlike Bernie and AOC, Forstag is less willing to go out on a limb and openly declare that he is a democratic socialist who seeks to overthrow America’s traditions, values, and institutions.
He is politically savvy enough to realize that socialism, in its unvarnished form, may not resonate with most Montanans at this point. But since he can read the writing on the wall, he more than likely understands that democratic socialism is on the ascendancy among the left.
Forstag is playing a good game of primary political chess. On one hand, he is making friends with democratic socialists and seems more than amicable with their anti-American agenda. On the other hand, he is trying to portray himself as a man of the people who cares about their problems and supports policies to solve those problems.
Make no mistake, per his policy platform, Sam Forstag is a democratic socialist. The big question is whether Big Sky voters will buy his stealth socialism.
Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.
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