Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, the pro-Israel, pro-commonsense Democrat, is in trouble. While most of his party has been clamoring for cutting off military aid to Israel and pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into a premature end to hostilities in Gaza, Fetterman has been a strong voice for supporting Israel's effort to destroy the threat to their very existence.
There's a concerted effort to portray Fetterman's apostasy as mental illness. New York Magazine published a 7,200-word hit piece on Fetterman that claimed friends and staffers were "worried" that Fetterman's mental health was in question. They reported on outbursts by the senator against colleagues. He's supposedly depressed and moody.
“I believed in John’s ability to work through struggles that lots of Americans share,” said former Fetterman chief of staff Adam Jentleson. “He’s not locked into a downward trajectory; he could get back in treatment at any time, and for a long time I held out hope that he would. But it’s just been too long now, and things keep getting worse.”
All of these Democratic armchair psychiatrists and psychologists don't know squat. It's safe to say that if Fetterman was toeing the line on Israel and not harshly criticizing his own party for their radical leftward drift, this article and many more like it would not be published.
If Fetterman was a run-of-the-mill, northeastern Democrat and Republicans were saying that Fetterman was sick and needed help, you can bet all of these Fetterman critics would be singing a different tune.
After all, they ignored the obvious decline of Joe Biden.
John Fetterman is a dying breed. The "party of the working man" has left blue-collar Americans behind to embrace radical race and gender ideology. Fetterman has remained true to his roots.
He's also remained true to an old-fashioned Democratic Party worldview. He promotes "kitchen table" issues like jobs, concerns about the cost of living, and "fairness" (not "equity"). Democrats used to believe in these things, and Fetterman still does.
Some Republicans believe that Fetterman can be wooed away from the Democratic Party, even though he has repeatedly said he's not interested in changing sides.
While some Democrats have distanced themselves from Fetterman, top Republicans have rallied around him in the wake of news reports that his current and former staffers are concerned about his mental and physical health.
Several GOP senators, including Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), have come to Fetterman’s defense on social media.“The radical left is smearing him with dishonest, vicious attacks because he’s pro-Israel and they only want reliable anti-Israel politicians,” Cotton said.
Asked if Republicans are trying to tug Fetterman to the GOP, Gallego said “of course.”
“In the Marines, we call these f**k-f**k games,” said Gallego, who traveled to Pennsylvania Saturday for a town hall.
Fetterman was the only Democrat to attend the Oval Office signing of the Laken Riley Act and is the only rank-and-file Democrat to have met with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Does that mean he might be persuaded to switch parties?
In the 21st century, Pennsylvania's Republican Senator Arlen Specter was the only senator who switched parties (several senators became independents). Fetterman's Democratic roots run too deep to woo him to the Republican side successfully. Trying to get a rock-ribbed Democrat like Fetterman to join the GOP is futile.
However, Fetterman may be a gettable vote on several issues like border security, some law and order issues, and Israel. Republicans should find issues to work with Fetterman on rather than wasting their time trying to get him to switch sides.
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