Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman is the quintessential iconoclast. He’s a disruptor of the first order, a thorn in the side of Democrats, and the media’s go-to guy if it wants a juicy quote from a Democrat who’s likely to say something bad about his own party.
But Fetterman is no Republican. He made that very clear in an op-ed he wrote for the Washington Post, published Thursday.
Talking about his first race for political office in 2008, the mayor of his dying steel town of Braddock, Penn., Fetterman wrote that it “wasn’t about being a Democrat or Republican, but about making sure places such as Braddock received the benefits, focus, and investments they deserved for their contributions to this great country.”
Fetterman has sought to maintain that political identity ever since.
I’d say he was an “old-fashioned” politician, looking to work with the other party to achieve mutually beneficial goals, but it wasn’t that long ago that the sort of bipartisanship Fetterman ascribes to was the dominant political identity of members of both parties.
Today, the base of both parties sees that sort of bipartisanship as weak and even traitorous. This has made Fetterman a lonely figure, as much of his own party shuns him. Democrats in Pennsylvania give Fetterman a 22% approval rating, while Republicans embrace him, with 73% approving of the job he’s doing.
What Democrats object to most of all is that Fetterman doesn’t hate Donald Trump. He opposes Trump on most issues, but the visceral, hysterical hate that Democrats feel toward Trump is missing from Fetterman’s rhetoric.
On some issues, he supports the president, which drives the radical left nuts. He has been a strong supporter of Trump’s policy toward Israel and Iran, and he has backed Trump’s border crackdown.
My party cannot simply be the opposite of whatever President Donald Trump says. The president could come out for ice cream and lazy Sundays, and my party would suddenly hate them. Such pointless pile-ons and attacks are unproductive. The American people want us to work together to find solutions on issues they and our country face.It wasn’t long ago when Democrats wanted a secure border. I voted on an immigration bill in 2024 to make sure an influx the size of Pittsburgh doesn’t come through the border like it did under the previous administration. I have co-sponsored legislation to stop the flow of fentanyl. I was the lead Democrat on the Laken Riley Act, and I strongly believe that someone who comes here illegally and commits a violent crime should be deported. Full stop.
This support for some of Trump’s agenda has Republicans eying Fetterman for a party switch. It’s not going to happen. Fetterman is not the vindictive type, and even if Democrats boot him off committees and support someone more radical in the primary (he’s up for reelection in 2028), he will remain a Democrat. “I remain strongly pro-choice, pro-weed, pro-LGBT, pro-SNAP, pro-labor and even pro-rib-eye over bio slop,” he wrote. None of that except preferring rib-eye sounds very “Republican” to me.
Fetterman explains: “Being an independent voice that works with the other side to deliver for Pennsylvanians might put me at odds with the party that I have stayed committed to and have no plans to leave — but I will continue to put the commonwealth and the country first,” he said.
He added, “Plus, I’d be a terrible Republican who still votes overwhelmingly with Democrats.”
Heritage Action, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation, gives Fetterman a 0% score for the 119th Congress, indicating that from a staunchly conservative perspective, his voting record is still overwhelmingly aligned with the Democratic caucus.
Fetterman says he “has no plans to leave” the Democratic Party. Some commentators, such as Aaron Blake of Politico, point out that plans can change.
The first thing to note is that while some have cast this as Fetterman rejecting a party switch, he didn’t fully rule it out.
Yes, it’s significant that he even felt pressured enough to write this op-ed downplaying the prospect, and Democrats should be heartened that he did.
But “no plans” is not the same as “no chance,” and politicians often use the former phrasing to keep their options open. If things were to change, Fetterman — who’s not facing reelection until 2028 — could say he truthfully wasn’t planning on switching parties, but that his plans changed because of XYZ.
I’m sure Fetterman will find a way to anger Republicans, if only to reestablish his bona fides as a blue-collar Democrat. But he remains one of the more colorful politicians in a city full of black, white, and gray.
Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.
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