Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is without any doubt one of the strangest political figures in American history. During his campaign, he never gave any indication of being anything but a doctrinaire, down-the-line leftist, and attention focused less on his policy positions than on the fact that after suffering a stroke, he seemed barely able to formulate a coherent sentence.
After being hospitalized for depression, however, he emerged not only able to speak clearly and lucidly, but he also began to take a number of common-sense stands, which inevitably led him away from the left. And he has just offered an analysis of what has gone wrong with the Democrats that is more accurate and convincing than almost all the other post-mortems.
This doesn’t mean that Fetterman sees everything clearly now, and he certainly hasn’t made a full break with the left. He dismisses speculation that he is going to become a Republican as “amateur hour s**t,” explaining: “I’ve been on record ... saying I am not going to become a Republican, you know, although maybe some people might be happy on one side. But I would make a pretty terrible Republican, because, you know, [I’m] pro-choice, pro really strong immigration, pro-LGBTQ … I don’t think I’d be a good fit. So I’m not going to change my party.” He added: “It’s not gonna happen. Even if I wanted to do that, that is a rocket sled to Palookaville to try to switch.”
Okay, “rocket sled to Palookaville” is clearly the winner in the Most Colorful Phrase by a Politician in 2025 sweepstakes, but’s clear: Fetterman is not Republican, is not going to be one, and shouldn’t be one. PJ’s Matt Margolis observed Friday that “it’s baffling that anyone on the right bought into the idea that Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was ever going to become more moderate."
Still, on Thursday, Fetterman offered what is easily the most clear-eyed and realistic of all the Democrats’ assessments of why Americans are turning away from the Democrat Party. Instead of whining about racism and sexism as supposedly the reasons why the Dems lost so resoundingly in 2024, Fetterman said of his fellow Democrats: "I think their primary currency was shaming and scolding and talking down to people and telling them ‘Hey, I know better than you, or you’re dopes, or you’re a bro, or you’re ignorant or, how can you be this dumb? I can’t imagine it. And then, by the way, they’re fascists. How can you vote for that?’”
Indeed. Yet most of the most prominent Democrats have simply doubled down since the election, not realizing that their arrogance was precisely what cost them votes, and piling on more of the same. Fetterman also noted that the Democrats’ hysterical claims about Trump and his followers did the party damage as well: "And you know, when you’re in a state like Pennsylvania, I know and I love people that voted for Trump, and they’re not fascist. They don’t support insurrection and those things. And if you go to an extreme, and you become a boutique kind of proposition, then you’re going to lose the argument. And we have done that." Yes, you sure have.
Fetterman correctly assessed the 2024 election as a "gut-check kind of vote," with Americans opting to vote for the candidates who were "going to protect or project [their] personal view of the American way of life." Indeed. This was a referendum on whether we wanted to continue down the road of socialist internationalism, gender insanity, open borders, and cultural and political dissolution, or try to save what we can of America as a distinct nation. The Democrats were and are on the wrong side, and Fetterman even admitted that he was "not sure" the party of Jefferson, Jackson, Black Lives Matter, and Code Pink could win ordinary Americans back to the fold.
"I think that’s been seriously eroding for a while,” Fetterman said. “And in some cases, in the conversations I’ve had, a lot of people, they don’t even want to say it publicly, but they just feel like the other side seems like… the men’s the problem. Men are to blame. Or their masculinity is toxic. Or unless you’re able to conform to our very strict kinds of definition of what we think is appropriate, well then, hey, I’m going to find an alternative. And they’ve done that. That’s absolutely true." It sure is. Just ask Dylan Mulvaney.
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Fetterman even said (on Fox News, of all places) that "one area where we kind of lost ourselves was the border. And I've been on this network, you know, months, months ago saying, 'Hey, you know, it can't be controversial for our party to have pro-immigration, but we need a secure border.' And when we ask or demand people to not believe what they see, and see those kinds of numbers, that that's not a problem. It's like, well, then you lose about that 100%."
Fetterman isn’t a Republican, but he is hardly a Democrat at this point. He is actually a man who is thinking about the issues and using his common sense when other Democrats have said goodbye to that quality long ago. If he keeps this up, who knows? He could end up realizing that the Democrats are just as nuts on his cherished issues as they are on the ones over which he has already broken with them. These are exciting times indeed.
