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The Fetterman Conundrum [1]
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Date: 2025-01-09
For weeks since the election of Donald Trump, liberal activists (including folks here) have been raising questions: Has Fetterman changed since his stroke? He he another Joe Manchin DINO? Is he going to jump ship to the Republicans?
I’d like to suggest two different questions to ask:
1) What made you think Fetterman was someone different?
2) What do you expect him to do differently?
As a high profile Democratic donor, I get a lot of requests to meet with candidates; in 2022 I met with both Conor Lamb and John Fetterman before the Primary. Usually these discussions will involve their background, goals as a Senator, political strategies etc. With Conor Lamb, I got his background as a mainstream Democrat who had taken a purple House district from the Republicans and was a solid Democratic vote on key issues like reproductive and gay rights.
With John Fetterman, after an hour’s discussion, I had no idea what he was interested in doing, other than support Democratic Senate initiatives, and no idea of what his policies would be (except that he supported fracking). When I raised these points in various circles, I was told I just didn’t understand Fetterman’s appeal. that his working class cred made him a “real” progressive as opposed to a “corporate Democrat” like Lamb.
Setting aside his stroke, I’ll opine that nothing in his first two years expressed a progressive bent. It seems as though a lot of people chose to project on him a progressive image based on their imagination of him, rather than any hard data or political promises.
So now we come to 2025. Those working class voters that elected Fetterman as LtG in 2018 and as Senator in 2022 elected Donald Trump and Dave McCormick in 2024. These are Fetterman’s constituents. And while he’s not going to become an opportunistic Republican, since he doesn’t have a package of stated issues he supports, he’s likely to be sensitive to the populist wave sweeping his State, and will “reach across the aisle” (to use a phrase people seem to hate these days) to get things for his voters.
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