John Fetterman needs to retire.
Health status has never been the reason I would like to see John Fetterman step away. It was always his crap policy positions. But it does seem as if he's unwell on top of everything else.
I started this draft when I heard on The Bulwark that Tim Miller said: "I saw John Fetterman palling around with Dave McCormick at Salena Zito's book party over the weekend." And then I heard an episode of The Bulwark where they discussed the profile article about John Fetterman. And wow, it’s worse than even I knew about. And I had heard before somewhere that his staff was leery of getting in a car with him because he had an accident and other traffic incidents. That never made much sense to me as I would’ve thought a perk of being a US Senator would be that you probably really never need to drive your own car again. But put altogether a lot of this story seems to show someone who really is as off the rails as he seems, acting inappropriately.
There were several stories in the news about how he was having staff quit a lot. I really just assumed it was his erratic support of Republican policies. Typically staffers who take jobs with Democrats do so because they want to work for Democrats, after all. But in this case I now imagine that these people may have been quitting because of not wanting to deal with erratic behaviour.
I did not know that his wife was reportedly not happy with him. Frankly, that at least provides some evidence against my worst suspicions after John Fetterman actually voted for that right-wing extremist border bill. Voting for Marco Rubio was understandable, if undesirable, since we all thought Marco Rubio was more or less a normal politician — nobody expected the likes of what he’s been up to, let’s be honest. But so many other votes of John Fetterman have been bad, or even inexplicably bad. A few other dubious Democrats also joined him in some of those votes of course, but Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote for Pam Bondi, for example.
So John Fetterman and Dave Mccormick are apparently elite pals hanging out at book parties. Dave Mccormick is the other US Senator for Pennsylvania, a Republican that keeps sending me constituent reply letters that say: “President Trump promised to shake up Washington and rein in the federal bureaucracy.” as the preamble of defending the Elon Musk cuts to federal agencies. And when I say he “keeps sending me” I mean that Dave Mccormick’s staff just keeps sending me an identical letter repeatedly after I write to him about various issues. John Fetterman’s staff does a far better job, by the way — they actually have curated responses on topics that are fairly well written and I guess probably match up vaguely to the topics I’m writing about. (I write so often it’s hard to tell what they’re responding to with what letter.)
I looked it up to see who this Salena Zito is, because I’m not familiar with this author that held this book party. I found an op-ed in WaPo and some photos I hadn't seen before probably because they were all behind a paywall and I can’t be bothered to make a lot of effort to read a lot from The Jeff Bezos Post — what I’m sure is a lot of propaganda in service to the business mogul class.
I didn’t watch the video but it was labeled “John Fetterman: I’ve lost my taste for ‘pointless clashing'.” and the picture shows Dave Mccormick and John Fetterman sitting on a leather sofa at the home of John Fetterman, both of them look like they’re laughing, and a large white dog appears to be seeking attention from Dave Mccormick, who is paying the dog no mind in this snapshot, he’s looking at John Fetterman, and John Fetterman is looking off to side I assume to someone in the room but not in the picture frame.
"Pointless clashing" seems to be what John Fetterman calls people fighting for life and liberty. While vaccines are threatened, scientific research, including medical treatment research, is being defunded, people are being denied due process, American citizens are having home invasions from federal agents because of mistaken identity with immigrants, and the civil rights for so many, including disabled people, are being threatened.
Pointless clashing, John Fetterman says.
I imagine that many people might still not realize that John Fetterman comes from affluence and privilege. I knew back in 2016 about his ivy background. I’m sorry I didn’t pay enough attention to that back then.
I had heard rumours in 2016 that he was a spoiler in the democratic party primary. He ran in that primary against another progressive and a centrist liberal, and of course the progressive and left vote was split, the liberal became the candidate and lost to the republican, Pat Toomey. And now John Fetterman says he’s not even a progressive. When John Fetterman ran for the senate again in the primary I voted for Malcolm Kenyatta instead, who is a PA state rep and now a vice chair of the DNC, and had come to Scranton and walked the picket line with teachers on strike. But by this point John Fetterman was the lieutenant governor and had much more name recognition. I phone banked for John Fetterman, and I voted for him because I saw it as a necessity to vote against the pseudoscience menace that’s now serving in the Trump regime, Dr. Oz.
Finally though, at the end of it, it’s tragic if John Fetterman has such serious health issues and he’s not taking care of himself just to stay in office and cause upset or even danger around him. Mind you, I don’t think you should have to be considered fit to operate a motor vehicle in order to hold an elected political office. There should be no reason to shut out of politics someone blind or even if physically unable to drive even a modified car. I think politicians should be able to have sick time and sick leaves, and I expect them to have health problems like anyone else, so I never objected to John Fetterman on the basis of his health issues — not even a disability that would impede his ability to speak well. I do think it’s wrong if people push themselves to keep working if they really need a leave or to retire of course. But lots of people have heart attacks and strokes, and go about their business, perhaps with after effects, and I don’t think that should be grounds for shutting people out of civic life they’re up for. I never had a problem with his lack of dress code, even though I think it’s very unwise to wear gym shorts when it’s quite cold and there’s snow on the ground.
I certainly didn’t care if John Fetterman lacked decorum, so I did object when he was the one criticizing other fellow dem politicians as lacking decorum. What a joke. That was actually the thing that made me start wondering if there was something seriously wrong with his perceptions. It seemed so outrageous. But my problem with John Fetterman has been that I object to his many outrageous comments, his bad votes, and his terrible positions on way too many issues. My objections dated at least back to his time as Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania at the outset of the pandemic in 2020.
But now, in light of the sheer volume of people saying he’s not well, seriously unwell in fact — I think that there are irreconcilable health related issues that require resignation.
My letter to Senator John Fetterman:
Please resign to take care of your health and spend time with your family.
Feel free to take and copy my letter for your own.