The Wall Street Journal came out this week with a blockbuster story about Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senator John Fetterman.
The story — which relies heavily on former staffers providing documentation about their former boss’s erratic behavior — has ping-ponged around the political press.
It shows that Fetterman has little interest in his actual job, regularly declining to meet with constituents from children’s hospitals to veterans. Instead, the evidence suggests that Fetterman is obsessed with media, both social and traditional, where he often appears to defend his adoration of the foreign state of Israel and criticize his own party.
But if Fetterman were merely a Likudnik and contrarian, you could make the case that he is still a functioning lawmaker. Yet the evidence continues to mount that he simply does not seem interested in doing his job; he rarely meets with constituents or does open events in Pennsylvania.
And his behavior is erratic to the point where his mental health is in question. Beyond his incoherent speech patterns any time he’s ever challenged about any of his views whatsoever, he is apparently a recluse whose behavior alarms everyone around him.
Yet none of this came as any surprise.
After Fetterman’s stroke during the 2022 election campaign, many impartial observers could see that he was clearly struggling.
Yet Democrats rose to his defense, downplaying his health issues. Disability activists circled the wagons around him, decrying attacks on his ability to hold office as “ableism.”
Republicans, meanwhile, made Fetterman’s health a major campaign issue, implying that he was hiding major problems that make him unfit to serve.
Four years later, the roles seem to be totally reversed.
Now, Republicans are running to Fetterman’s defense.
Responding to the Wall Street Journal story, Pennsylvania’s Republican Senator Dave McCormick wrote that “they hate that he is an independent thinker who refuses to fall into line so they want to silence him.”
(It’s not clear who “they” is in this case, given that the Wall Street Journal is not exactly known as a leftist newspaper.)
It’s obvious why the Republicans won’t touch the issue of Fetterman’s poor mental health. In a narrow Senate majority, flipping Fetterman into their column could help them regain the balance of power in the future; alternatively, staying quiet about Fetterman’s flaws now would give them a weaker target in 2028, when they have an opportunity to unseat him with their own candidate. If Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro were to replace a resigned Fetterman with a mentally fit Democrat who could actually do his basic duties, the Republicans wouldn’t have much of a shot in the next election.
All of this makes me wonder if either political party has any objective standards beyond simply wanting their party to have more power.
A year ago, Fetterman threw a fit on an airplane because he didn’t want to wear his seatbelt. He had to be forced to wear a suit while present in the Senate chamber. His behavior is often more reminiscent of that of a toddler than someone who expects to serve in the most powerful legislative body in the world. He is clearly mentally ill, and even a foreign government seems to be taking advantage of this fact.
His party should be irrelevant to the question of whether he is fit to serve in the U.S. Senate; the answer is clearly no. But as long as he insists on maintaining his seat, he at least serves the purpose of making both major parties look unprincipled and hypocritical.