Idol Worship

Let it never be said that we lack the fortitude to admit our mistakes. Today, I stand before you chastened and more than a little bit disappointed. 

It's a cliche that one should never meet their heroes. The little-known corollary is that one shouldn't elevate a politician to hero status. The shorter version: Fucking Fetterman.

We were one of the first major outlets to boost the Pennsylvanian's public profile, offering this puff piece about the aspiring Senator's rise. Later, we endorsed him to succeed Joe Biden as POTUS. We liked his everyman shtick, his independent streak, his muscular defense of traditional liberal values. 

As it turns out, we were conned.

Since the inauguration of the current POTUS and his minions' gleeful dismantling of the Federal government, many things about the Democrats' response have been wanting. You can count the number of senior leaders in the opposition party who are publicly resisting on two hands. The hand-sitters number in the scores. And the collaborators, well we've got some of them, too.

Led, sadly, by John Fetterman.

The big doofus was the first Democrat to travel to Mar-A-Lago, calling That Fucking Guy "kind" after their meeting. He's been a reliable vote for Cabinet nominees, one of only five Dems to support 10 of the clowns who now lead agencies. Not only did he vote in support of the budget agreement that handed the GOP a win, he lashed out at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes in the aftermath, telling her to "deal with it".

Finally, in a particularly grotesque bit of political theater, the outspoken supporter of Israel accepted a gift from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the form of a silver-plated pager, like the kind that the Israelis detonated en masse to injure and kill Hamas operatives. Regardless of your stance on the tragedy in Gaza, a sitting U.S. Senator jovially celebrating death and injury is fucking disgusting.

Other Democrats are starting to get uncomfortable with Fetterman, too. Cumberland County (PA) Democratic Party chair Matt Roan wrote an op-ed yesterday calling on the state's junior senator to resign, saying, "Fetterman no longer represents the interests of those who elected him, he seems disinterested in serving in his important position, and his actions in the Senate are actively harming Pennsylvanians."

Sadly, though not reluctantly, I agree. 

Number One with a Bullet (Head)

I first became aware of Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman in 2009, when he appeared on The Colbert Report. At the time, Fetterman was the unorthodox mayor of economically-battered Braddock, PA, a town devastated by the decline of the steel industry and ravaged by the era's recession. In the clip below, Fetterman talks of social justice and equity long before those terms were mainstream.

Now, more than a decade later, Fetterman has returned to my (and the nation's) conscience as the larger-than-life (dude is 6'8" and built like an offensive lineman) face of the state's electoral prominence. He likened the President's role in the process to "rolling up in a clown car to downtown Philadelphia". Later in the week, he appreciated Senator Pat Toomey's public rebuke of Trump's claims of electoral fraud, but added, "“It would’ve been nice if someone had FedEx-ed him that backbone four years ago.”

As this Salon profile points out, Fetterman's more than just quick with a quip; his appearance and personal style (rarely wears suits, is heavily tattooed, lives with his wife and kids in a converted auto dealership) belie a dude that's a legitimate public servant with a history of getting things done in difficult circumstances. From the Salon piece, this quote from a Twitter fan says a lot, "our Lt. Gov is not just some big lovable mascot but a smart dude with a track record of actually doing shit and broadly appealing policy positions. The future of the electable left looks like John and his family."

John and his family are something else, too. His Twitter feed is a running chronicle of the ways in which his Brazilian-born wife Gisele makes fun of him for doing things like failing to close kitchen drawers or wearing cargo shorts to their wedding. They seem for all the world like real, good folks. 

There seems to be an awful lot to like about a guy who went to Harvard, eschewed the normal path of folks with that degree and moved to a derelict little town in Western PA to try to put his ideas about society to good use. In a messy world like ours, there are no perfect politicians, as this 2018 Washington Post profile notes. Fetterman lost an endorsement from Bernie Sanders backers in the Our Revolution organization (despite being endorsed by Sanders himself) because he owns a gun and supported a limited fracking program because it meant 3,000 jobs for his region. 

After the downballot disappointment of 2020 (even though they took the big prize, Dems definitely missed a chance to give the Biden/Harris administration a running start in Congress), lefty purity tests are a recipe to continue to have Republicans hand Democrats their electoral assess. Smart, charismatic, unique, and real people like John Fetterman are the future of the party.

I hope we see more of him. And Gisele. She's a hoot.