Fetterman, The Potentially Party-Switching Democrat Everyone Hates, Will Tell You Who The True Democrats Are
No, you should not listen to him.
John Fetterman doesn’t think much about the Democratic Party, and the feeling is quite mutual. His approval among Pennsylvania Democrats is an abysmal 19 percent. The Baltimore Ravens is more popular.
Senate Republicans are actively pushing Fetterman to switch parties and help expand their majority. (They would inevitably drop him in favor of a real Republican come 2028.) Fetterman is reportedly open to this if Democrats keep listening to Democratic voters about Israel’s right-wing government.
“If our party ever becomes — and just makes it official — the anti-Israel party, that’s when I would leave because that’s been a moral clarity for me,” Fetterman whined to the Hill Nation Summit.
Last week, Fetterman made one of his regularly scheduled Fox News hits, during which he talked about who he personally considers “great Democrats.” Obviously, no one paying attention would include him on such a list. (Watch below.)
I’m not sure why he referred to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis as “President Polis.” After folding to Donald Trump’s mobster threats, Polis released unrepentant election denier Tina Peters and effectively ended any future career in Democratic politics. He didn’t even receive a commemorative t-shirt.
Fetterman insists that Democratic Socialists aren’t actual Democrats even though they are running as Democrats in Democratic primaries where Democratic voters almost exclusively vote. The DSA is accused of a “hostile takeover” of the Democratic Party, which I’ve previously discussed and dismissed as a silly argument. The Democratic Party is not especially popular. There’s no branding benefit from such a “takeover.”
Given his Israel fixation, Fetterman predictably defended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s honor, which is non-existent, after New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani (correctly) called him a war criminal. “I know you’re angry at Netanyahu because he killed a lot of people you admire.” Fetterman is referring to Hamas terrorists not the 38,000 women and girls killed in Gaza from October 2023 and December 2025. Meanwhile, Fetterman rarely has harsh words for the ICE goons who are executing U.S. citizens. In fact, after Renee Good’s murder, Fetterman lectured Democrats to “turn down the temperature,” as if their strong words against ICE were somehow responsible for a hateful thug shooting a mother in the head. (Watch below.)
Of course, Fetterman has no concerns about the temperature when he calls Democratic socialists “anti-American” and “dirtbags.” Mamdani (and his wife) have received unhinged death threats even before he was elected, and they have only increased once he took office — and not just because he dares condemn Netanyahu’s grotesque actions.
Center-left Democrats claim that Democratic Socialists are a threat to the party because they spend more time attacking Democrats than they do attacking Republicans, who control every branch of government to the nation’s detriment. However, it’s obvious that center-left Democrats can’t follow their own advice. They freak out over DSA victories and fully embrace the paranoid narrative about a “socialist takeover” of a party whose congressional leaders are Droopy Dog and a disembodied suit. Like John Fetterman, Jared Polis also enjoys complaining about socialism on right-wing media. (Watch below.)
“First of all, it’s important that people understand what socialism is,” Polis said. “It’s government owning collective ownership of the means of production, meaning they’re owning companies. They’re operating companies.”
So far, that’s nothing like what most DSA candidates have actually proposed. Seattle has a Democratic Socialist mayor and yet Amazon still thrives. It’s sadly ironic that centrist Democrats in particular have spent the past decade warning liberals against calling Trump and his MAGA movement “Nazis” or even “fascists” — despite the many uncomfortable similarities — but they’re now eagerly skiing down the slippery slope from Medicare for All and wealth taxes to outright communism.
You don’t have to like socialism, but you also don’t have to do this. When Republican primary voters nominated QAnon cultists in 2020, Republicans didn’t rush to MSNBC so they could express their shock and horror to Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow. After Marjorie Taylor Greene won her primary runoff in 2020, she received full GOP leadership support, including from sitting president Donald Trump. Republicans would even gain seats in the House that year.
But Republicans are just very good at pushing the Overton window while Democrats just slam it shut on their own fingers. Republicans normalize the members who have outright dangerous views, whereas Democrats can’t seem to find room in their “big tent” for members with views that are simply different. You don’t have to agree with the socialist members, but you don’t have to go full Joe McCarthy.
“I support universal healthcare,” Polis has claimed. “I support a strong social safety net. The only way to accomplish those — and history has proven this — is through capitalism and the free-market system [and] the clarity that it creates.”
Republicans (and many centrist Democrats) have a documented history of labeling all those proposals as “socialism.” Democrats who are worried about socialism could at least call out the predatory capitalism that Republicans impose when in power and that too many moderate Democrats willingly support.
There are center-left Democrats who understand the value of a true “big tent.” During an appearance on Fox News last week, Buttigieg was asked in obvious bad faith if “it’s gone too far” having citizens vote for and elect Democratic socialist candidates as if it’s a free country. (Watch below.)
Buttigieg deftly responded in a manner that focused on policy disagreements — always a given in a true liberal democracy — rather than dehumanizing rhetoric and a 21st Century Red Scare reprise.
“There’s always gonna be some people in my party who go too far for me, people I disagree with,” Buttigieg said. “If you pick the four or five furtherest left people in our party, they are by definition going to disagree with a lot of others, but there is so much that we do in fact agree on. I think one of the reasons why you see people who run on a promise of shaking it up, whether it's a DSA candidate on the left or whether it's someone like Donald Trump is because people can tell that the system we have is not just showing its age —it’s letting us down. That system can change. There's a way to do that.”
Yes, and it’s better than whatever Fetterman and Polis are doing. Buttigieg is a true leader and thus wants to expand the coalition that could finally, at long last, defeat MAGA. Fetterman in particular is just out for himself.
I was talking with a friend at the pub last night and Fetterman's name came up. He said, "I thought he was a Democrat?" and I replied, "So did everyone who voted for him."
Sinema in a hoodie.