In 2016 a mutual friend assured me that then Mayor John Fetterman was A-OK and should be endorsed for senator in his first run for statewide office. I spoke with him and he seemed like a good, solid progressive. Blue America endorsed him but he lost the primary. Two years later he ran for Lieutenant Governor and most progressives stuck with him. He had begun to look… not so great to us and Blue America sat that race out. And by the time he ran for Senate again (2022) it was clear that he was a hybrid— progressive on some things, not at all progressive on others. Again we sat that race out. I’m glad we didn’t ask our contributors to donate to his campaign.
He seems to be more about John Fetterman than about his constituents… but I’m sure he doesn’t see it that way. Fetterman’s trajectory is emblematic of a troubling trend in politics, where candidates who promise bold, progressive change often drift toward pragmatism— or outright betrayal of values— once in office. That drift might be excused as “political reality,” but it’s a reality shaped by choices, not inevitabilities.
Contrast it with AOC, who famously said she would go back to being a waitress rather than betray her values as a member of Congress. AOC’s steadfastness stands as a beacon of integrity, a reminder that holding office is a means to fight for justice, not an end in itself. Fetterman, by contrast, increasingly looks like someone desperate to stay in the Senate, even if it means aligning with Trump and betraying the very principles that earned him the trust of progressives in the first place. He seems like Jim Justice, who was elected governor of West Virginia and quickly allowed himself to be seduced by Trump— and switched parties.
Yesterday, Marc Levy reported that “When Democrat John Fetterman got elected to Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat, many backers hoped he’d challenge convention and the status quo. He did and has— just not in the way many had expected. Fetterman has broken with his party on some policy matters and warmed to Trump, a man he bashed on the 2024 campaign trail as a ‘felon’ who is ‘obsessed with revenge.’ Fetterman later became the first Senate Democrat to meet with Trump since the election. In fact, Fetterman has warmed to Trump so much that some in his party are quietly disavowing the man they supported in 2022, when the Pennsylvanian easily won a three-candidate primary and survived a stroke amid a high-pressure campaign to become the only Democrat to flip a Republican Senate seat that year.”
After Hamas attacked Israel, Fetterman became an outspoken supporter of Israel on an issue that had firmly divided Democrats.
Now, Fetterman has become the only Senate Democrat to meet with Trump, after flying to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last weekend. Fetterman said it was only reasonable to meet with the incoming president in what Fetterman has described as a good and honest conversation that lasted for over an hour.
“And I can only see good things emerging from that,” Fetterman told KDKA.
For his part, Trump told the Washington Examiner that they had a “totally fascinating meeting” and that Fetterman is a “commonsense person” and “not liberal or conservative.”
Some Democrats say Fetterman is a smart politician who is acknowledging political reality.
…He’s met with several of Trump’s Cabinet picks— unlike some fellow Democrats— and pledged to vote for some, even posing for photos with a thumb’s-up, which Trump often strikes in photos with well-wishers.
Fetterman is also not dismissing Trump’s eyebrow-raising idea of acquiring Greenland, the massive and rare earth mineral-rich Danish territory. On Fox News, Fetterman called buying Greenland “a responsible conversation” and compared it to the Louisiana Purchase.
He co-sponsored a GOP bill to detain unauthorized immigrants accused of certain crimes and helped get it past a procedural hurdle in the Senate. Amid brewing Democratic opposition, Fetterman remarked on Fox News that if enough Democrats couldn’t join with Republicans to pass the bill “then that’s a reason why we lost” the 2024 election.
Republican senators have held out Fetterman as an example for other Democrats to follow. Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), a close friend of Fetterman’s in the Senate, said he is giving Pennsylvania a seat at the table by engaging with Trump and his nominees, and has demonstrated that he’s interested in good policy, not partisan lines.
“Truly, if more people operated like that, we would be better off as a nation,” Britt said in an interview.