I like John Fetterman (a Senator from Pennsylvania) because he’s quirky, speaks his mind, and because he wears shorts on the Senate floor. (at 6 foot eight inches, he’s also the tallest Senator). Some of his quirkiness may be due to his seious stroke, but this article shows his straight talk—rare in today’s prominent Democrats. You can read about his political positions here.
You can read his interview with Jess Bidgood by clicking on the headline below, or find the story archived here.
There aren’t any revelations, just Fetter being himself and chilling, as well as telling the Democrats to chill the f out instead of pulling a Laura Helmuth or threatening to leave America. It’s a short interview and I’ve put a few excerpts below. This is pure Fetterman (I’d love to see him have a postmortem discussion of the election with James Carville).
BTW, he’s 55 years old.
Some excerpts:
Senator John Fetterman wasn’t in Washington for the first Trump administration. But he has a few ideas about how Democrats should handle the second.
He wants his party to accept its losses. He wants his party to chill out a little. And he wants his party to please stop with all the hot takes about what went wrong in November, since Democrats have four long years to figure it out.
Fetterman has some experience taking on President-elect Donald Trump’s G.O.P. He won his seat in 2022 after overcoming a near-fatal stroke and beating the Trump-endorsed Dr. Mehmet Oz, who has since become the president-elect’s pick to run Medicare. As the Democratic Party reckons with its losses in places like Pennsylvania — where Trump beat Vice President Kamala Harris by 1.7 percentage points and Bob Casey, a third-term Democratic senator, lost his seat — I called Fetterman.
Our conversation was the first in a series of interviews I’ll do in this newsletter about the path forward for the Democratic Party.
And the Q&A:
How do you think Democrats should be talking to bros, and should be talking to men, and should be talking to working-class voters?
Have a conversation. Have a conversation with anyone that’s willing to have an honest conversation. That’s always been the rule, and that’s what I’m going to continue. I’ve had conversations on Fox News, and they’ve played me straight. I’ve shown up on Newsmax, and they’ve played it straight. And Rogan. Rogan was great. He was cordial and open and warm.
Why was it important to you to go on Joe Rogan?
I’m a fan. I’m a huge fan of Bill Maher, a huge fan of Colbert.
. . . Do Democrats need to do an analysis of what went wrong? And, if so, who should do it?
We’re not even at Thanksgiving, and Democrats just can’t stop losing our minds every fifteen minutes. We really need to pace ourselves, or, you know, for FFS, just grab a grip. Realize that this is how elections go. At least for the next two years, they’re going to have the opportunity to write the narrative and to drive the narrative.
Trump is assembling a cabinet of people many Democrats find deeply objectionable. How do you think Democrats should respond?
I’m just saying, buckle up and pack a lunch, because it’s going to be four years of this. And if you have a choice to freak out, you know, on the hour, then that’s your right. But I will not. I’m not that dude, and I’m not that Democrat. I’m going to pick my fights. If you freak out on everything, you lose any kind of relevance.
. . . One analysis of the election that we’ve heard from your colleague Senator Bernie Sanders is that Democrats failed to recognize how bad people were feeling about the economy, about the country generally, and failed to name a villain. Do you agree with that analysis?
I do not.
Why?
I think there was a lot of other issues. I would even describe them as cultural. Walk around in Scranton, tell me what an oligarch is. I think it’s like, “Whose argument is the closest match to the kinds of things that are important to me?” And I think some of them are rooted in gender and worldviews, and even backlash of things like cancel culture.
I witness people, now there’s specific kinds of clothing. They call it Blue Collar Patriots. I’m willing to bet you know who they’re voting for.
And why is that? I don’t think it’s because we haven’t talked enough about oligarchs, and how it’s rigged.
Here’s the giant Fetterman with Israeli President Isaac Herzog:
Here’s Fetterman on the Joe Rogan show if you have two hours to spare after dinner. This has to be better than football!
Fetterman’s a good guy. I’ve written him several times to thank him for his unfettered support of Israel, and I’m not even a constituent! (My mother is.) I tried to send a mail once to Congresswoman Jayapal imploring her (respectfully) to attend Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to Congress—her district borders mine—but she doesn’t accept communications from those outside her district. So, I sent the same letter to my congresswoman, and asked her to forward it to Jayapal. They all love me, I’m sure.
I go back and forth on Fetterman, but I think I like him. He seems willing to have an honest exchange of opinions, and that counts for a lot.
Paychecks, not pronouns. Mothers Day, not Chest Feeders day. Talk the language of
blue collar people. There was an inversion with Reagan. He looked like he was born on a horse with that creased leathery face. Google it, ‘Reagan on a horse’. And google ‘snoopy in a tank’. Reagans party stole the blue collar regular guys from an indifferent Democrat party. MSNBC brings in pronoun people to discuss what is wrong with the world they don’t live in. It’s pure cringe. Democrats, get normal again. People want normal.
+1 / “Paychecks, not pronouns. Mothers Day, not Chest Feeders day.”
I’m always glad to hear that Sen. Fetterman is doing well after his stroke. He came a long way. Good for him!
+1 to all of the above.
That was a fun interview. I find Fetterman very likable. We need more “normal” like that. Cool dude. If given the opportunity, I’d vote for him.
I’m surprised – I think I’ve only watched any of Rogan once, and I think I was screaming at him most of the time. I thought he was one of those types that constantly interrupt the interviewee, but he was pretty civilized in this interview.
I think the whole Voter ID thing is a semantic issue and I think John missed bringing that up. In PA, for instance, you can’t just walk in and ask for a ballot. You’re checked off of a list, and you have to sign in. They check your signature vs. what they have. But with the Voter ID crowd I don’t think that counts. They want a photo ID. It’s not necessary – there’s already a system in place that has worked for decades. You first have to be in the list in the precinct you’re registered to vote in, and it requires clearing some hurdles to register. But that aspect was never brought up.
And I’m surprised that Israel wasn’t brought up at all, except as an afterthought right at the end.