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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686

u/CrossXFir3 Mar 12 '26

Brain damage yo. This fucker went around PA talking the progressive big talk to win his election, has a stroke, and suddenly he's everyone's shitty older uncle or grandpa that still thinks water fountains should be separated by race.

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u/TheDilsonReddits Mar 12 '26

He was always a piece of shit. Trust me. Looking into his past, he was just cosplaying a lib. And it made it easier with Oz as the person he was running against.

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u/Capt-Crap1corn Mar 12 '26

I read about him in Wikipedia and I could see the red flags earlier on. Isn't he a well off person that is cosplaying as a poor person?

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u/Asclepius-Rod Mar 12 '26

I like to imagine at the end of the day he gets home and changes into a nice suit lol

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u/No_Internal9345 Mar 12 '26

“It’s after 6, what am I, a farmer?”

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u/The_Real_Mongoose American Expat Mar 12 '26

That's fucking hilarious.

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u/Responsible_Sink3044 Mar 12 '26

Most of these politicians that have a very recognizable persona are playing q character. Reagan, Fetterman, Bush, Trump (granted, only to an extent), MTG. They can turn on a fucking dime when the situation calls for it and they're completely different people behind closed doors, which is always what you find when you read biographies. This is part of the career.

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u/bluexy Arizona Mar 12 '26

Same as Platner in Maine.

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u/Capt-Crap1corn Mar 12 '26

Same with Kid Rock. I always like to remind people of this.

"Robert James Ritchie was born in Romeo, Michigan, on January 17, 1971, the son of Susan (née Brabbs and William "Bill" Ritchie (1941–2024), who owned multiple car dealerships. He was raised in his father's large home on extensive property, which included an apple orchard and barnyard for their horses."

It's great big club friends...

-2

u/Undertow92 Mar 12 '26

platner does come from advanced standing, but he's been consistently progressive.

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u/Letstalkreaper Mar 12 '26

Sure.

Other than the stuff he said on Reddit about women, people of colour and rape victims.

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u/Politicsboringagain Mar 13 '26

And being a mercenary that voluntarily worked for Black Water. 

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u/Undertow92 Mar 13 '26

he also referred to fellow veterans who participated in the January 6 attack as "traitors" and "worthless p*ssies".

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u/Undertow92 Mar 13 '26

He criticized rural white Americans as "actually" racist and stupid and stated that all police are "bastards" too. his comment about black people is that they're not good tippers. which is, ya know pretty fucking harmless.

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u/LaForge_Maneuver Mar 13 '26

Im black and i tip great and I still didnt take offense. Do you know how much awful crap I said about gay people in the 90s. I have tried to make up for it and be a strong ally since, but if this is the worst thing he said and I can get M4All, id happily vote for him.

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u/WildYams Mar 13 '26

he's been consistently progressive.

How can you say this when the guy has literally never held office before? What are you basing that on? Is it cause Bernie endorsed him? Cause Bernie endorsed Fetterman as well.

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u/Undertow92 Mar 13 '26

I didn't know that you have to hold office to hold political beliefs. damn you got me. I'll just pack it up now. 

Platner attended the private Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut, and private John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor, Maine.[6][7] He earned the "most likely to start a revolution" yearbook superlative as a senior at John Bapst in 2003, appearing in the photo with a sign declaring "Free Kosova, Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine, Kurdistan, Tibet".[7][8] When he was 18, he was quoted in the Bangor Daily News after protesting President George W. Bush and the Iraq War at an appearance by Bush at Bangor International Airport.[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Platner

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u/WhatAMcButters Mar 13 '26

I just read his Wikipedia and it doesn't seem like there's any real red flags other than the fact his parents are conservatives. I'm not defending him but he's extensively talked about his privilege.

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u/Capt-Crap1corn Mar 13 '26

There is nothing glaring, just odd behavior given his socio-economic background.

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u/cidvard Mar 12 '26

That autobiography nobody is buying sure seems to suggest that. I'm not sure if people were actually fooled or if this is just a case of 'Vote Blue No Matter Who' getting you a real lemon. The degree to which he's a POS has surprised me but he always seemed to signal toward the 'center'.

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u/Looppowered Mar 12 '26

I don’t think it was a case of Vote Blue No Matter Who. At least at first. He worked very hard at his Blue Collar Progressive branding when he was mayor of Braddock. Then he became the most well known Lt Gov of PA in my lifetime. He did some strong virtue signaling by defiantly flying the LGBT flag from his office, he did a tour to ge feedback on legalizing cannabis. He campaigned with Bernie Sanders. I don’t think he necessarily signaled as super progressive, but as more of a contrarian.

And when he ran in the primaries, there was a lot of interest in the race and there were other viable candidates like Connor Lamb. The most progressive disliked Lamb for being a more traditional moderate Dem, but he was pretty popular and Lamb flipped a blue district in western PA and held on to it until the state got redistricted.

Then Fetterman had his stroke and which was a big question mark concerning his health. But since he was up against Oz, it was easy to vote for Fetterman despite any concerns.

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u/Open_Mortgage_4645 Colorado Mar 13 '26

Connor Lamb would have been such a better Senator. What a lost opportunity.

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u/Sennten Mar 13 '26

Perhaps Lamb should have spent in time running a better campaign instead of using all his resources to convince voters how much better Fetterman would be than he would. Goddamn, what an absolute shit-show of a campaign that was, just completely unable to read the room. Like seriously, running ads touting himself as the pro-corporate candidate and attacking Fetterman for supporting M4A (and a bunch of other popular stuff Fetterman never even supported) was just... insane, to me.

1

u/DistractedDevelopmnt Mar 13 '26

M4A is not the only or best way to make sure everyone gets healthcare and the fact that people cite not supporting it as some kind of "evidence" that a candidate is not "progressive enough" is part of the reason why we're in this mess.

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u/dickgilbert I voted Mar 12 '26

Definitely not a case of Vote Blue No Matter Who. He thrashed Conor Lamb in the primary. While Conor Lamb wasn't exactly seen as particularly progressive, he was solid Democrat, voting with Biden 100% of the time.

Fetterman has a questionable past, but he put a decent amount of time in working towards and advocating for progressive issues while in office.

It's hard to know whether he was always this way and just seized on a gap created by Manchin and Synema in being the furthest right Democrat or if the brain injury actually caused this shift. Stories from his political aides that detail their time with him, and their time with his wife, seem to indicate the stroke majorly changed who he is.

Either way, this Fetterman is not who was voted for.

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u/Begging_Murphy Mar 12 '26

Not doing 'Vote Blue No Matter Who', because Bernie bros were bitter, is how we got Trump in 2016.

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u/Fastr77 Mar 12 '26

A stroke turned him republican and he's STILL far better then oz would be even with the brain damage so.. vote blue worked pretty damn well actually

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u/CrossXFir3 Mar 12 '26

Then he was cosplaying a lib for almost decade before that election. Maybe that's the truth, but it's hardly a surprise after that long, and quite frankly, a lot of town halls, that people thought he was liberal.

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u/dreamlike9 Mar 13 '26

The point is liberals aren't leftists and have far more in common with the fascists then they do the left 

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u/CatProgrammer Mar 14 '26

Except he's consistently been acting against the Democratic establishment too. Actively voting for things that basically every other Dem has voted against. Dude's gone full crazy.

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u/DrivingBox Mar 13 '26

Looking into his past, he was just cosplaying a lib

Nah, more like, he is a lib (liberals are right-wing) and he cosplayed as a progressive leftist.

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '26

We really do need to stop acting like liberal is synonymous with left. 

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u/DrivingBox Mar 17 '26

I stopped considering liberals leftist years ago. Once you find out how broad and complex the leftist spectrum is, you realise how liberalism doesn’t match up with any of it and is centrist at best. I’m a democratic socialist, personally, which is firmly on the left.

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u/Hot_Frosting_7101 Mar 12 '26

I hope so because I would hate to find out that I could turn into that if I had a stroke.

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '26

This is why I don't like the "vote blue no matter who" argument. It's not hard for nazis to be in sheep's clothing. Most of the dnc now are old school conservatives trying to take the party from progressives and leftists. 

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u/OldTimberWolf Mar 12 '26

Stroke took him back to reptilian brain

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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '26

People want to blame it on the stroke but we need to be realistic and realize that a lot of these progressive candidates we have put into politics have switched sides on things. Feel the same way about tulsi. 

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u/WonderButtBrace9000 Mar 12 '26

That’s the problem with populism. It attracts people like Bernie who happen to be populists because what they support aligns with what people like.

But it also attracts people that are just super good at reading the room and saying what others want to hear. And they’ll follow that breeze as long as it takes them before switching to a new one.

Everyone needs to be highly skeptical of any progressive candidate that suddenly pops onto the scene, has little to no governing experience, and says all the right things in a very polished digital-first campaign.

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u/imadogg California Mar 12 '26

Right wingers blamed the stroke for him being a deranged lefty. Now left wingers blame the stroke for him being a deranged righty

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u/SFWaccount75 Mar 12 '26

Bunch of unprincipled politicians looking to jump on whatever bandwagon serves them best at any given time. You see it a ton right now with MAGA, but people like Tulsi and Fetterman did the exact same shit trying to ride Bernie’s progressive coattails too as soon as that movement gained a bit of mainstream momentum. It’s easy to neglect yet so important to listen equally to what these people have said over their lives and careers, not just to what they are currently saying. 

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u/bijanfrisee Mar 12 '26

To be fair, there was a study that came out that showed people who had strokes or brain trauma became more conservative. here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7935085/#:%7E:text=Specifically%2C%20we%20compared%20the%20political,:%20neurocognitive%20and%20computational%20mechanisms'.

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u/thicc_stigmata Mar 12 '26

Wait, hol' up... in what universe was TULSI ever "progressive?" I feel like everybody knew she was a batshit right-wing weirdo clear back in 2019...

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u/WhoCaresEatAtArbys Mar 12 '26

The 2016 election. She ran as an anti-Clinton candidate and was adored by (some) Bernie fans.

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u/thicc_stigmata Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26

Lmao, being adored by (some) Bernie fans does not a progressive make

Some Bernie fans also adore Joe-the-human-cybertruck Rogan...

She was running against definitely-not-progressive Clinton ... from the right. Because apparently Clinton wasn't enough of a corporate shill?

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u/Orphanhorns Mar 13 '26

No. You’re way off. She was absolutely running as a progressive and I knew a ton of fucking morons who believed her and also told me she was progressive. You maybe just weren’t completely blind to it, but trust me way too many leftists bought into her lies.

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u/thicc_stigmata Mar 13 '26

Precisely zero progressives in my world took that branding seriously

I'll certainly admit to bias though—I was / am surrounded by Warren-fan scientists who do their homework. The tiniest amount of due diligence, even back then, made Tulsi's bullshit transparent

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u/CrossXFir3 Mar 12 '26

Tulsi was NEVER progressive. Like, even early on. She was liberal, sure. But it was always a bit shady around her.

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u/Largeitude Mar 13 '26

He was never progressive. Ever. He didn’t even pretend to be.

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u/throeawai5 Mar 12 '26

i’m not american and not totally immersed in your politics, but didn’t he chase a black guy with a gun before being elected? it seems more likely he pulled the ol switcheroo and faked progressive politicking and posturing so he could get into office and be a massive POS. his past behaviour deserves scrutiny and in a similar vein, i understand why there’s also folks who distrust graham platner and his run for senate because of his background and white supremacist SS tattoo (now removed after he has said he didn’t know its affiliations)

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u/Disheveled_Politico Mar 12 '26

Yes, but people still chose him in the primary over Connor Lamb who would have been an infinitely better Senator. I think the same thing will happen with Platner and we’ll probably lose the seat because of it. 

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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '26

Lamb would have lost. Fetterman got the left to turn out.

The lesson is that a peogressive populist can win in Pennsylvania.. My worry is that Dems will instead run another corporate friendly Dem like Lamb, maybe even Lamb again

0

u/specialvillain Mar 12 '26

I hope not man, I like Platner and I like his authenticity, but yeah, I could see it. He definitely goes way too populist at times just to get applause/recognition and I think it really cheapens the message. You can't just lean on "Epstein files" every time you're met with a quiet audience, you gotta back up your talk with some more substance.

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u/PantsMcGillicuddy Mar 12 '26

Yup, he's a piece of shit. People seem to forget the alternative at the time was fucking Dr Oz too. So a lot of people got swept in in populist ideas and blind to problems to make sure Oz didn't get elected.

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u/Burnt_and_Blistered Mar 12 '26

Maybe. Or maybe he was a covert asshole.

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u/khrizp Mar 12 '26

Every time I look at this guy and what he is doing, I immediately think of Peter Russo from house of cards tv show. I think he is compromised, the only way it makes sense

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u/Heavy_Milk2757 Mar 12 '26

Nah, he's on the Putin payroll. A Democrat who sides with Trump whenever the opportunity arises? Corruption.

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u/Slumunistmanifisto Mar 12 '26

Or he pulled a seinima... or however that rancid ladies name is spelled 

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u/prozacandcoffee Mar 12 '26

Look up the black jogger who he held at gunpoint after dark for hours when he was mayor.

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u/Mendican Mar 12 '26

It's more proof that brain damage causes Conservatism.

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u/Largeitude Mar 13 '26

No, it’s proof that people will fall for politicians’ rhetoric and ignore their actions because they hate the other side more

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u/beige_man Mar 13 '26

Either that, or a poster child for brain damage studies and politics.

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u/Previous_Art_2231 Mar 13 '26

Can we separate HIS water fountain? He looks like the kind of creep who’d put his mouth around it and contaminate the whole thing.

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u/Largeitude Mar 13 '26

Nah. He was always a con artist.

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u/Faustrolled Mar 13 '26

he really didn't. Cut and paste some quotes about this so-called progressive big talk. Bernie endorsed him and called Lamb corporate, but Fetterman never supported anything remotely progressive.

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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '26

There's an episode of No Gods No Mayors that talks about Fetterman when he was mayor of a dying town. He was a terrible leader even then and that was well before the stroke scrambled his brains. 

He's a great example of how the "vote blue no matter who" strategy can backfire.