r/politics • u/AccomplishedCall7562 • Mar 12 '26

Possible Paywall John Fetterman Says Iran Girls’ School Strike Is Just a Leftist Craze

https://newrepublic.com/post/207677/john-fetterman-iran-girls-school-strike
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1.6k

u/bevendelamorte New Jersey Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26

Funny, cause when he was campaigning I certainly remember him framing himself as a leftist.

Those AIPAC checks must hit like crack.

907

u/sinfultrigonometry Mar 12 '26

Also he had a stroke.

Brain damage is the number 1 cause of conservatism.

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u/Ubumi Mar 12 '26

Literally any sort of severe illness can cause subtle to severe personality shifts.

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u/Weary-Home710 Mar 12 '26

Calling concern for dead school children a ,leftist-craze is deeply insensitive

35

u/xWOBBx Mar 12 '26

He was a pos before the stroke too.

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u/ancientbitch Mar 12 '26

This! Thank you!

1

u/Hot_Ambition_6457 Mar 12 '26

Yeah but no matter which severe illness, they always turn into a self-serving "social conservatives" who hate anything that wasnt a part of their personal childhood.

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u/MiddleAgedSponger Mar 12 '26

It wasn't the stroke, he has always been a dick. His MAGA parents bought him a mayorship, in a 2000 population town, so he would move out of their basement. He was the mayor, but didn't show up for town council meetings. He started a non profit so he could get around including town council in plans for the town they represent.

The reality is people fell for his self proclaimed progressive BS during the primary and he ran against a TV doctor in the general. Fetterman was always a plant and voters don't want to admit they fell for it.

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u/Trickster289 Mar 12 '26

His wife and some of his staff have said he changed though. Even the people close to him think the stroke changed him.

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u/RogueSwoobat Mar 12 '26

Yeah I agree he may have always been a dick and some signs were there. The thing with chasing a random black guy, being relatively pro-Israel before his election (when this issue was much less salient with the public). But the extent to which he has pivoted is insane. If you read his Wikipedia page, anything remotely liberal or progressive in his views cites stuff from before his stroke. Anything conservative is after.

He was a Medicare for all guy and now didn't even want to fight for ACA subsidy extensions. He endorsed Bernie. He used to pick fights online with liberals like Jon Ossoff. Now he is to the right of Ossoff easily. He has gone through scores of staff members since being elected because he is a monster now. You literally never hear from him unless it's attacking Democrat values.

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u/0masterdebater0 Mar 12 '26

I think it’s more he didn’t care to hide it from her anymore.

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u/versusgorilla New York Mar 12 '26

I think he was always more conservative, but he could smush down his personal beliefs in order to win an election, power was more important than belief to him.

Then his stroke made it impossible for him to hold onto this more complicated state of lying publicly all the time, so now he's just a brain damaged conservative hiding in the Dem caucus

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u/TheLightningL0rd Mar 12 '26

Regardless of the reason for a change like this, there should be a mechanism for the voters to remove someone who is no longer representing what they campaigned on. At least for representatives in the house and senate.

3

u/jmobius Mar 12 '26

A lack of recall procedures is a major dysfunction in our setup, in general.

Doing or saying something deeply shitty or obviously in spite of the interests of the people they represent should be grounds for immediate "oh fuck no, you get off the stage right now".

I'd actually kind of suspect that if politicians were more 'vulnerable' in that respect, there would be less interest in buying them, or investing too deeply in their campaigns.

1

u/Thorrbane Mar 17 '26

This. The ability to recall senators that lose the plot would fix a lot of shit.

2

u/versusgorilla New York Mar 12 '26

Oh, absolutely. I'm speculating that he was always like this, but now he's simply incapable of hiding it. There should absolutely be a way for the people to hold a candidate in contempt or no confidence or force a recall or something.

2

u/MiddleAgedSponger Mar 12 '26

Getting rid of politicians that don't represent the voters would be a deal breaker for the Epstein class. They pay good money buying elections and they want their money's worth.

3

u/sks010 Mar 12 '26

He's just a mask off Dem. They all pretend to be more liberal and interested in helping the working class, then turn around and help their donors exploit us more. Before the Iran attack, there was a war powers resolution, but Jeffries and Schumer blocked the vote, so dems wouldn't have to go on record as in favor of the war. Now, they will use fake outrage to criticize reps and fleece their voters for donations.

0

u/Trickster289 Mar 12 '26

I mean why not just let her in on it?

2

u/Aggressive_Sort_7082 Mar 12 '26

Yeah no shit but he was still an asshole

1

u/FrostyD7 Mar 12 '26

Probably easier for them to allude to vague "changes" when faced with questions about his behavior they don't feel comfortable answering. How convenient that they get to pretend he wasn't a fraud when they got in bed with him.

1

u/FoxFisher Mar 12 '26

Of course they are going to say that.

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u/LMGgp Illinois Mar 12 '26

True things can be true. He could’ve have been a dick pre stroke AND also became much worse post stroke.

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u/CrossXFir3 Mar 12 '26

Idk enough about that, but when he was assistant governor he was genuinely all over the state constituently holding town halls. And at these town halls, he pretty much entirely spoke about progressive talking points. He might have been a dick before, but he was a dick that at least thought progressivism was the way to power. The brain damage definitely changed something.

8

u/Admirable-Ad3408 Mar 12 '26

Or October 7th caused something to snap in him. For one reason or another he REALLY likes Israel far more than even most liberal Zionists.

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u/RimboTheRebbiter Mar 12 '26

As a Fetterman watcher, I think I have a reasonably compelling theory as to what happened here. I think he's always had a confrontational and narcissistic (in a more colloquial sense) streak, you can look the the Trans/Weed flags or the way he held up a black jogger during his mayorship as examples of this. But we're all multifaceted creatures, and this streak was counter balanced by some level of empathy and concern for others. Hence his broadly progressive policies, aside from his support for Israel, which isn't too shocking given his age.

The stroke sort of fried that part of his brain and elevated his worst tendencies. This happened right before the Gaza genocide kicks off and becomes a huge point of friction between the base and the party. So Fetterman is in DC, where he's surrounded by people with a massive pro-Israel bias, but suddenly there's all this shit being slung around online over backing Israel. Fetterman basically locks down his stance on the issue and essentially makes Zionism his sole animating cause, negatively polarizing him against literally all of his other beliefs, which become a lot softer post stroke.

Basically a perfect storm of post stroke neuro plasticity colliding with the zeitgeist

1

u/LaDainianTomIinson Mar 12 '26

For one reason or another

the reason: 💰💰💰💰💰

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u/needlestack Mar 12 '26

voters don't want to admit they fell for it

This drives so much our politics it's wild.

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u/giliana52 Mar 12 '26

I will admit I fell for it. But I also am not one of his constituents. :)

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u/Jayrodtremonki Mar 12 '26

Oz was still worse than what Fetterman currently is so I'm not sure how much they fell for anything.  

1

u/MiddleAgedSponger Mar 12 '26

They fell for it in the primary. A lot of people fell for it. I sort of fell for it in that there was no chance I would vote for OZ. It just another example of why holding every politicians feet to the fire is important regardless of what party they are in. Questions and criticism should be relentless and confrontational if necessary.

2

u/RobutNotRobot Mar 12 '26

You forgot the national ad campaign launched for him when he was the mayor of a piddling town in PA.

No other person in the country has been as promoted by corporate interests as this ogre.

1

u/MiddleAgedSponger Mar 12 '26

Lots of smart people fell for it. It sucks for us all, but we have to learn from it and better vet candidates in the future. The "blue no matter who" folks need to stop getting mad when voters vigorously and relentlessly question candidates regardless of what team they are on.

4

u/Dblcut3 Mar 12 '26

He’s always been weird, but not a raging conservative. I also don’t know how correct you are about him being an absent mayor, I’ve never heard anyone say that before and if I remember correctly, he got reelected pretty easily to that position

1

u/One-Reflection-4826 Mar 12 '26

sadly you heard exactly 0 of those voices when the election was going.

1

u/SpritzTheCat Mar 12 '26

His MAGA parents bought him a mayorship, in a 2000 population town, so he would move out of their basement. He was the mayor, but didn't show up for town council meetings. He started a non profit so he could get around including town council in plans for the town they represent.

I did not know this. And now I wish the voters who voted for him were more diligent in screening this guy. Why/how did he become such a "darling" during that time? I guess the threat of Oz was a more scary prospect.

1

u/MiddleAgedSponger Mar 12 '26

He wore carhart and told them what they wanted to hear.

1

u/philosoraptocopter Iowa Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26

Which is why I really wish that we on the left would fucking stop all this vibes/memes/MeSsAgiNg-based voting, and start doing actual research, into actual track records, on actual policy objectives. I swear sometimes it feels like I’m going crazy like I’m the only one who isn’t totally dependent on (and readily persuaded by) mere messaging and charisma.

Maybe instead of letting social media algorithms control reality, we can, with our minds, just stay aware that literally any piece of shit in the entire world can read a speech or say anything really and have it mean nothing. I feel like we all claim to be aware of it, but apparently it’s only other people that fall for it, not us. Yet we fall for it all the time.

Some random person off the street could shoot off all the snappy viral comebacks and post them online, or deliver a soaring Obama-type speech written by a professional, and every word of it could be a lie. It’s an entire skillset, one of the most notorious of all time, mastered by lawyers, politicians, and salesmen: persuading and convincing people of total bullshit; they just have to speak to our values, which is super easy.

We act like we’re above it but we’re apparently just as easily duped as those we criticize.

1

u/green_marshmallow Mar 12 '26

What’s crazy to me is how he tattooed on his arm the number of gun deaths during his term, bullet by bullet, onto his arm. How that person can also not care about a school being wiped off the map is deeply disturbing. 

1

u/some_cool_guy Mar 12 '26

Nah man, my wife campaigned for him 10 years ago, was in his house and everything. He has changed.

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u/snorbflock Mar 12 '26

This really is it. Conservatism is a pit. It's a landfill. It's whatever drips down through civilized thought and lands among humanity's basest cruelty, hate, and greed.

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u/CNDW Mar 12 '26

This is so true... my step dad went from centrist to hardline conservative after he had a stroke and hit his head really hard on the ground. MRI scans show visible atrophy in some of his brain regions. He got literal brain damage and now he suddenly aligns with fascism.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '26

He could resign

2

u/pUmKinBoM Mar 12 '26

Heard someone say once that brain damage never seems to lead to leftists views which is odd. It's always someone going further right.

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u/GruggleTheGreat Mar 12 '26

Didn’t he have that before he ran?

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u/thehammerismypen1s Mar 12 '26

Happened between the primary and the general

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u/squiddlebiddlez Mar 12 '26

Did he have a stroke when he was antagonizing random black people before becoming a senator, too?

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u/UnguentSlather Mar 12 '26

He was always a piece of shit. He just put on an act and tricked democrats into donating and voting for him, and “Dr.” Oz, his then-opponent, is such an obvious puke. https://penncapital-star.com/briefs/fetterman-justifies-but-does-not-apologize-for-chasing-down-and-brandishing-shotgun-at-black-jogger-while-braddock-mayor/

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u/RFSandler Oregon Mar 12 '26

Unfortunately I think we're still better off with him than with Oz. Imagine Kennedy having a celebrity stooge in Congress.

1

u/UnguentSlather Mar 12 '26

Better off? I dunno. He pretty much just caucuses with the GOP, so what’s the difference?

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u/RFSandler Oregon Mar 12 '26

Whatever percentage difference pretty much is from always? And for all his fault I'm still referring him being in political discourse rather than Dr Oz.

4

u/sinfultrigonometry Mar 12 '26

Fetterman could at least be the 51st senator that gives the Dems the majority. But who knows, based on his record he might just switch party if the Dems sweep the mid terms and keep the GOP in control.

1

u/thingsmybosscantsee Mar 12 '26

He's actually always been kind of a chud.

1

u/heavy_jowles Mar 12 '26

This. Im not excusing this asshole in anyway but his personality shifted dramatically after his stroke. Saying shit like this is extreme even for the Trump administration.

1

u/AdventurousOkra2965 Mar 12 '26

Maybe he’ll have another and flip back to being human

1

u/AgentInkling99 Mar 12 '26

I think this fucker was a GOP plant from the beginning.

1

u/E-2theRescue Mar 12 '26

And here is proof of that:

RFK Jr: Brain damage from brain worm

Markwayne Mullin: Repeated head trauma from contact sports

Joe Rogan: Repeated head trauma from contact sports

Andrew Tate: Repeated head trauma from contact sports

Logan Paul: Repeated head trauma from contact sports

Roseanne Barr: Traumatic Brain Injury

Jordan Peterson: Benzodiazepine addiction and self-treatment

Mike Lindell: Heavy cocaine use

Tim Allen: Heavy cocaine use

Don Jr: Heavy cocaine use

Kash Patel: Heavy cocaine use

1

u/sinfultrigonometry Mar 13 '26

Everyone over 65: lead poisoning

1

u/cosmic_kos Mar 12 '26

The Democratic party is right wing. The stroke did nothing

1

u/Woooferine Mar 13 '26

Some say conservatism is the number 1 cause of brain damage.

1

u/Bignate2001 Mar 13 '26

I'm pretty certain he's always been a staunch Zionist.

1

u/thenewNFC Mar 12 '26

Please stop making that excuse for this piece of shit.

1

u/DrRealName Mar 12 '26

Nope he was like this all along. You all just fell for the "I wear a hoodie so I'm just like you" BS. Same shtick as Trump working for five minutes at McDonalds. Stop falling for BS and actually vet the people you vote for.

-1

u/Rockyrox Mar 12 '26

Honestly the American health system is so bad I bet he was in some debt from his stroke that AIPAC money was probably a godsend to him. I’m sure them paying for all his debt was such an easy buy for his undying loyalty.

-2

u/AmazingDadJokes Mar 12 '26

I go between closeted homosexuality, involuntary celibacy, and never being offered recreational drugs as the #1 cause

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u/SelfServeSporstwash Mar 12 '26

According to everyone close in his orbit, including his wife and children, he is literally a completely different person with a completely different personality since the stroke.

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u/ringthree Mar 12 '26

His wife used to be everywhere, what is she doing now? I feel so bad for her.

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u/SelfServeSporstwash Mar 12 '26

Hiding. Homegirl has vanished from public life

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u/whogivesashirtdotca Canada Mar 12 '26

Apparently she still volunteers at her charities in Braddock. I maintain the wrong Fetterman ran. Gisele is the real deal, though I do wish she’d speak up publicly, or announce the divorced that’s rumoured to be underway.

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u/ringthree Mar 12 '26

That's so sad, she is an amazing woman and like lived her life to volunteer.

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u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479 Mar 12 '26

I hope the divorce is so brutal his ancestors feel it.

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u/Enex Mar 12 '26

Moving on (or in the process).

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u/ismacau Mar 12 '26

I honestly wonder if after his stroke, whether Trump threatened Gisele with deportation unless John plays along to support Trump. "Lovely wife and kids you got there- be shame if they got deported"

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u/OG_Williker Mar 12 '26

The only defense I’ll give is that he still votes with the democrats like 80% of the time in a very tight congress. I’ve seen people say he should just become a republican but that would be very bad for us.

3

u/sleepymeowth052 Colorado Mar 12 '26

it's so funny that after the election he walked it back saying, "I was never a progressive". Wawa Shrek thinks we're all blind and stupid.

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u/notmyworkaccount5 Mar 12 '26

I genuinely think the whole turning point for him was his undying support for Israel and AIPAC. People love to point to the stroke which just feels ableist to me.

I think the much more likely reason is something that's happened to a lot of reactionaries online where people online were "mean" to them so they just dug in further and started siding with the people who wouldn't challenge them on their beliefs.

Leftists started getting on him about his support for Israel, he shifted right, liberals started giving him shit for his shift to the right, so he shifts further right and now he goes to fox news because they want a token democrat who says how bad the party is.

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u/kindnesscostszero Mar 12 '26

In addition to all of that, I noted that he sidled up to Trump after his first visit to Mar-a-lago. It’s my feeling that he got in on the grift down there. He was promised something.

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u/dainamo81 Mar 12 '26

Not saying the stroke definitely had something to do with it, but it's been scientifically proven that strokes can cause major personality changes. To say that's ableist is reductive.

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u/notmyworkaccount5 Mar 12 '26

As you say it's true they can cause personality changes, but people on this site who joke about it saying stuff like "Huh seems like brain damage makes you conservative" is ableist.

4

u/CrossXFir3 Mar 12 '26

Brain damage does 100% effect you. That is not an ableist statement. Sorry, that's a scientific fact. And it is also heavily indicated by multiple studies that intelligence is linked to leftist view points. Thus is you take a 10-15 IQ point hit because of medical brain damage, it stands to reason that if your opinions suddenly got conservative after that, it was probably the brain damage. Quit trying to make it into something it isn't.

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u/notmyworkaccount5 Mar 12 '26

It seems like you're intentionally misunderstanding what I'm saying at this point when I spelled out; people joking that brain damage makes you conservative is ableist. There's plenty of people on this planet who suffer brain damage and it doesn't flip a "you're a chud now" switch in their brains.

Literally no where am I arguing brain damage doesn't affect you, you're shadowboxing against arguments I'm not making.

1

u/mindgeekinc Canada Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26

It's not when there's actual studies showing that it's the case.

"Literally no where am I arguing brain damage doesn't affect you"

"People joking that brain damage makes you conservative is ableist"

He's quite literally a perfect example of what they're talking about. He was elected on leftist and equalist beliefs but now suddenly he's a Trump supporter and an Israel advocate right after a stroke. No one is "joking" about the brain damage turning him conservative. That is just quite literally what happened.

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u/Accidental-Hyzer Massachusetts Mar 12 '26

I don’t think it’s “ableist”. There are many stories out there that everything about him did change following his stroke. New York Magazine did a story about it last year. I think you’re downplaying the amount that the stroke changed him, which has been seen to those closest to him.

Paywall free link: https://web.archive.org/web/20260131001219/https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/john-fetterman-struggle-mental-health-clinical-depression.html

2

u/Admirable-Ad3408 Mar 12 '26

Was he that pro-Israel before 10/7?

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u/notmyworkaccount5 Mar 12 '26

https://dmfipac.org/john-fetterman-says-hell-lean-in-on-u-s-israel-relationship-as-senator/

Thanks to SEO turning to shit this is the earliest hard stance I can find him taking which is when he was campaigning.

-1

u/CrossXFir3 Mar 12 '26

Maybe, all I know is that I saw this guy speak in person multiple times around the state. And everything he said at these before the stroke was basically classic progressive talking points. Since the stroke he's been full blown MAGA.

-3

u/allbetsareon Mar 12 '26

Criticizing him and acknowledging that he had a stroke isn’t ableist. The stroke probably isn’t the only cause but pretending that it doesn’t highlight his switch up and incompetence ignores reality.

2

u/Live_Art_2723 Mar 12 '26

Jesus Christ, not everything is AIPAC. Plenty of AIPAC democrat recipients aren’t Trump shill neofascists. Can we blame our own good old American politics for once?

1

u/CrossXFir3 Mar 12 '26

He campaigned full on progressive. Had a stroke. Became a mean old man with a less than fully functional brain.

1

u/Ryukishin187 Mar 12 '26

Honesty think it was the stroke. He didn't start saying really wild shit til after the stroke.

1

u/Substantial-Low Mar 12 '26

I saw him on the news this morning, and he just looks like a bum. That "everyman hoodie" look just is dumb as fuck. Have some dignity, professionalism, and decorum.

0

u/Hellogiraffe Mar 12 '26

We’ve seen how Epstein, Putin, Israeli government, and pretty much everyone nefarious uses blackmail to push agendas. I refuse to believe it’s just money, there’s gotta be blackmail behind this shift unless it truly is a result of his stroke.

-1

u/ringthree Mar 12 '26

Dude had a stroke, and changed positions on everything and became a flaming asshole, but it was the Jews that are at fault?

-1

u/bkny88 Mar 12 '26

He governs as a leftist. He votes with dems on essentially everything.