{
  "id": 5990239,
  "title": "This smokejumper says the US has lost its empathy. That’s why he’s running for Congress",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/06/this-smokejumper-says-the-us-has-lost-its-empathy-thats-why-hes",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-09-06T14:00:06.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Guardian US",
    "slug": "the-guardian-us",
    "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/06/this-smokejumper-says-the-us-has-lost-its-empathy-thats-why-hes-running-for-congress"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Montana resident Sam Forstag, a former smokejumper, argues that the U.S. has lost its empathy for its working class. On a snowy evening in 2013, Forstag narrowly escaped being hit by a car that spun out of control and crashed into a ditch. The incident, he recalled, made him realize that in tight-knit communities, people help each other when their vehicles break down. Forstag, who grew up in a single-parent household, has run for Congress to represent Montana's first congressional district. He believes that economic pressures are leaving Americans with less time to care for one another and that politicians exploit this desperation by promoting anti-immigrant rhetoric and culture-war battles. Forstag's campaign highlights the need for politicians to serve the interests of working-class people, rather than funneling wealth into their own pockets.",
  "summary": "Montana’s Sam Forstag says US working class is left playing a game of chance while neither party serves its interests At around five o’clock on a winter evening in 2013, then college student Sam Forstag was driving through a snowstorm toward his third job of the day, making sandwiches at the Subway inside a Walmart. “I was always late,” Forstag recalled with a laugh more than a decade later.…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}