Montana Democrats and their candidate for Montana’s first congressional district, Sam Forstag, would have you believe he’s cut from the same cloth as the average Montanan. However, what is true of Forstag’s carefully curated “blue-collar” campaign is equally true of the public Drag Queen Story Hour shows he’s spent his whole career defending: looks can be deceiving.

I got involved in politics because I believed government could make life better for ordinary people. Growing up in rural southeastern Montana, I watched my father work as a truck driver and my mother wait tables while raising our family. They taught me that hard work matters, that opportunity isn't guaranteed, and that public service is about fighting for people who don't always have a voice.

With every passing week we see more headlines confirming that the Montana Democrat Party (MDP) is in complete and utter disarray.

Some Montana Democrats have spent the last few weeks blaming Jon Tester and the old guard for splitting the party between Seth Bodnar and Alani Bankhead.

Our country is in a dark place. The Trump administration has stripped abortion rights at the federal level, threatened Social Security and Medicaid, deported American citizens, packed the courts, and used the Justice Department against its political enemies. It has separated families at the border, abandoned our allies, and lurched toward authoritarianism with a speed that has left democratic institutions gasping.

Democrats have been forced to respond to the stubborn theory that whoever prevails in the primary would drop out to throw party support behind independent candidate Seth Bodnar.