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What in the fresh hell, Pennsylvania?
Has the Motte discussed John Fetterman? If so, I missed it... I admit there are enough races I'm watching across the country that it is hard to keep track of them all. But in case you, too, have missed it, John Fetterman is the Democratic candidate for the seat of outgoing Senator Pat Toomey, one of 7 Republican senators who voted to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment circus. Seven days before winning the Primary, John Fetterman had a stroke.
I am not a medical doctor. For all I know, Fetterman will make a full recovery, eventually. But as of right now, the guy is one step above monosyllabic. Which made tonight's debate absolutely excruciating to watch. Over the course of the night, PredictIt shifted ten cents in favor of Fetterman's opponent,
the Wizard ofMehmet Oz. And yet most media accounts of the debate are steadfastly reporting only the substance, such as it was. No surprise--the media has been carrying water for Fetterman for weeks. But like... really? You can't report a single sentence saying, "Fetterman was clearly not up to the task." Watching people hit Twitter to unironically praise him for "doing really well, for a stroke victim!" is shocking. The level of partisanship required to vote for Fetterman at this point simply boggles the mind. On the flip side, #Festerman was briefly trending on Twitter before (I presume) someone elbowed their censors.Of course, we can trust our outspoken President to just tell it like it is. Perhaps President Biden understands better than anyone, given the possibility that he, too, might simply be functioning as a sock puppet for the Democratic establishment. The counterargument that criticizing Fetterman's cognition is some kind of "ableism" is just hollow. This is not a man who can do the job of Senator, at least not right now, and to pretend otherwise just seems exploitative to me. (And calling that a "bad faith" argument seems willfully ignorant. The man can barely speak, that's much more than an "auditory processing" problem.)
Of course, voting has been open for a month in Pennsylvania, and the state has already declared its intention to turn a blind eye to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling as it counts undated ballots. So in addition to potentially electing someone with the mental faculties of a young child to high federal office, Pennsylvania is also setting up a judicial crisis for its election process.
And all because Oz is, well, a Trumpist. If this is what midterms look like, 2024 is going to be... just something else. I can't even imagine. It's simply too much.
I'm still not sure what an inlady is supposed to be.
https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1585062398251401216
I genuinely feel horrible for this guy and hope he recovers as much as he possibly can. How the hell did they not sub him out for some other candidate as soon as it happened? Did they really expect him to magically get better? Could they not find any other male Democrat who's built like a linebacker but still uses he/him pronouns?
Why do you feel bad for him? While he's obviously impaired, he's not incapable of making his own decisions. If he had a shred of integrity, he would have dropped out.
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He is a very tall man who looks like a stereotypical Trump voter with very left-leaning politics and a Hispanic wife. People were thinking he was going to be a shoo-in presidential candidate in 6 or 10 years. Shame to throw that dream away just because of some crippling brain damage.
My understanding from American left twitter is that it's more than that. His campaign was supposed to be the proof-of-concept that economy-oriented left-wing politics can be a winning combo, that there was still room in the Dems for (white, but not only white) guys who vote left because they support the labor movement and a more equal division of wealth and that leaning towards that view would actually be good for the Dems to recoup the populist energy. (The fact that Fetterman comes from a family of means himself is mostly immaterial to that purpose, the history is full of people's champs who come from wealth themselves - you could see Trump himself that way.) Moreover, it was a good proof-of-concept race in the way that he was facing a rich guy who became rich through frivolous means, ie. being a celebrity TV doctor and selling quack cures.
When you've got a situation like that, game pieces all on board, the whiff of a slam-dunk event, of course you're going to hang on to that - and I would suspect that health situations where it's not immediately obvious how serious it's going to be are not the easiest thing in the world to use for demanding a candidate steps down, since you might just create potential conditions for someone else to do the same to you if you happen to catch a little bit of something.
I am very skeptical of this narrative. None of Fetterman's ads even hint at his left-wing politics, except when he has to try to defend past statements. His whole tone is built around heavily implying that he is a Trump/Carlson style right populist who wants to fight Washington, without ever mentioning any specific policies. Meanwhile, most of the attack ads against him are about how Fetterman is an extreme leftist.
I'm talking about the reasons why he was talked up when he was being made a candidate, and before it. It's unsurprising and expected that he'd run to the centre during the actual election.
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