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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.
In general Congressional elections, most people don't vote for candidates. They vote to give their party control of the House or Senate. Showing up and voting the party line is 95% of the job. Fetterman demonstrated that he can do that; anything more is gravy.
Same deal with Oz. He's a garbage candidate, but a vote for him is a vote to block a Democratic trifecta, and that's literally all I care about in this election. If I lived in Pennsylvania, I'd vote for him.
This would be my stance on Herschel Walker if I lived in Georgia. The man is clearly a moron, clearly immoral, and clearly lies on a regular basis. I wouldn't want him to be part of my life in any way whatsoever. Would that nudge me over to preferring Warnock? Nah.
Still, having people so clearly unfit for office (or managing a Dairy Queen) in the Senate speaks volumes about American institutional collapse.
Yep been in fights on Reddit on this. I think most people get it that your just voting for Senate control and candidate quality isn’t that important. There’s always one person who wants to argue how bad the individual candidate is.
It’s not the old legislature where legislatures had more freedom to vote.
How does having poor quality Senators speak to “institutional collapse” - doesn’t it imply our institution’ quality is high that an idiot can run them? It reminds me of Buffetts quotes that you want to own businesses that still produce even if an idiot is in charge because some day an idiot will be in charge.
The Senate realistically needs about 5-10 competent people per side to set the agenda and then they just need warm bodies.
The Senate is a bit different. The length of their terms and the rules of the chamber itself gives individual Senators a lot of independence to attempt to shape policy. The entire run of bipartisan legislation this term more or less comes down to a group of centrist/compromise oriented Senators getting fed up with leadership and creating a legislative agenda independently.
Not all Senators are actually going to be policy innovators, but a Westminster style parliamentary chamber it is not.
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