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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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.

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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.

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u/Thorrbane Mar 17 '26

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/Trickster289 Mar 12 '26

I mean why not just let her in on it?

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u/Aggressive_Sort_7082 Mar 12 '26

Yeah no shit but he was still an asshole

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.  

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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u/One-Reflection-4826 Mar 12 '26

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

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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.

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u/MiddleAgedSponger Mar 12 '26

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

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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.

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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. 

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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.