Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., has been making enemies on the left in recent months. After Israel retaliated against Hamas after its Oct. 7 attacks, he staked out a position as a staunch pro-Israel partisan and taunted pro-Palestinian activists pushing for a cease-fire. More recently, he angered progressive activists with his willingness to compromise with the GOP on restrictive immigration policies. Then on Friday, in what was a bombshell declaration, he told NBC News, “I’m not a progressive.”
Fetterman’s recent statements and positions have confused some progressives and delighted some Republicans. It’s striking to see Fetterman butt heads with groups who saw him as an ally, given that he’s a politician who has frequently described himself as a progressive, campaigned for Sen. Bernie Sanders and received plaudits from America’s foremost socialist magazine for providing a compelling model of populism.
Is Fetterman changing before our eyes or is he, as he and his staff have insisted, consistently sticking up for what he has always believed in?
A bit of both.
Fetterman has never been a doctrinaire progressive.
Fetterman has never been a doctrinaire progressive, and certainly not a democratic socialist-type that affiliates with The Squad in the House of Representatives. Yes, Fetterman endorsed Sanders in the 2016 presidential race, and during his Senate campaign he took progressive positions on marijuana legalization, supporting organized labor and raising the minimum wage. But during his campaign, he didn’t take up signature progressive policies like Medicare-for-all, and he notably deviated from progressive orthodoxy on key issues. He supported fracking, to the chagrin of environmentalists. He pledged to “lean in’’ on the issue of “enhancing the security of Israel.” He criticized President Joe Biden over lifting Title 42, a Trump-era immigration policy that allowed the U.S. to expel hundreds of thousands of immigrants using the pretext of…
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